Weekly Link Round Up

A previous Weekly Link Round Up included a broken link, so here’s the correct link for Lee Harlem Robinson’s website!

AfterEllen is compiling the list of the favourite out female celebrities and nominations are open. Go nominate your favourite les/bi/etc author!

Arsenalia posted about queer book censorship in prisons and Freedom to Read week.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week posted about reviewed queer books.

Bookmooch’s Queer Books forum has a thread about queer reading group discussion guides.

Bella Books has posted lots about book availability changes.

F/F Fan Fiction Reader’s Corner posted Ramble – a walk through The Top 100 of 2010.

GLBT Promo Blog posted An Interview with Fiona Zedde.

I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell do I read? posted The Trevor Project, Advocate.com, and Lee Wind (That’s Me!) Team Up To Create A New Book Club For GLBTQ & Allied Teens And Young Adults (13-24)!

Lambda Literary posted Congrats on our 1000th Post!! and some links to queer lit news.

Lesbian Fiction Readers’ Choice has announced that the nomination period for this year’s award are from March 1-20.

Project Queer posted about Audre Lorde.

Rainbow Romance Writers has posted the winners of the 2010 Rainbow Awards For Excellence.

Three Dollar Bill Reviews posted Zombie Wrap-up.

Women and Words posted Sex Scenes Without Fear.

Octavia Butler was posted about at About.com Lesbian Life.

Ivan Coyote tweeted about the It Gets Better book, coming out March 22.

Alex Marcoux is offering free copies of her books to high school libraries.

Bett Norris posted Lots of Good News.

Rachel Spangler posted Truth In Fiction, about searching out queer books in a small town college library.

Tell Them Katy Did by Victor J. Banis was reviewed at Three Dollar Bill Reviews.

Indelible by Jove Belle was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Unbearable Lightness by Portia De Rossi was reviewed at Oh She Glows.

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson was reviewed at Bibrary Bookslut.

A Matter of Blood by Andi Marquette was reviewed at Queer Magazine Online.

Kiss of Noir by Clara Nipper was reviewed at Out of Print Queer Books.

From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law by Martha C. Nussbaum was reviewed at The Pursuit of Harpyness.

Justifiable Risk by V.K. Powell was reviewed at Queer Magazine Online.

The Devil Be Damned by Ali Vali was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Orlando (audio book) by Virginia Woolf was reviewed at the Zen Leaf.

Danika reviews Dear John, I Love Jane edited by Candace Walsh and Laura Andre

I love this book. I just want to say that straight off the bat. In any minority (of power) group, telling our own stories is crucial, especially when they’re stories that defy the narrative that has traditionally been put forth about that group.

The foreword of Dear John, I Love Jane is written by the author of Sexual Fluidity, which is a book I now really want to read. The only problems I had with the book in general were that the introduction and foreword combined seemed pretty lengthy, and the introduction especially seemed unnecessary.

Also, I was initially irritated because the  foreword set the tone for stories about sexual fluidity, which I was very excited about being able to read, because we have a very Born This Way, rigid conception of sexuality in our society, and I wanted to see the stories this framework ignores. When the first few stories didn’t really address sexual fluidity, I was disappointed, but by the end I was completely satisfied.

The major thing I loved about Dear John, I Love Jane was the quality of writing. With a topic this narrow, I didn’t have very high standards, especially since anthologies generally have a range of quality. Most anthologies tend to include at least one story that you really hate. This was not true! I actually didn’t have any story that I didn’t enjoy. They varied in styles, but I thought the quality of writing was high in each one.

What makes Dear John, I Love Jane so valuable, though, is the variety of the stories told. As I said, I was hoping for stories about sexual fluidity, and there were, but they weren’t the only ones. Dear John, I Love Jane represents many different situations where women left men for women. In some, it was because they had always been attracted to women and only were with a man because they felt it was the right thing to do. For others, though, they really were deeply in love with the man they were with. For some, it was one woman who changed everything, and had nothing to do with their sexuality, just with the individual. And some women decide to stay with their husband. It really represents a range, which I found refreshing.

I have a particular dislike for our dichotomy of choice vs born-that-way with sexuality. No other aspect of ourselves do we treat that way. Was I born sarcastic, or did I choose to be that way? Was I born loving books, or did I choose to be that way? It doesn’t make any sense. And it doesn’t with orientation, either. If sexuality is not a rigid, unchanging, biological, pre-destined thing, it doesn’t automatically make it a choice.

I also enjoyed the portrayal of men in the stories. Some of the partners are not ideal mates, but many are wonderful people, and it brings more nuance to it. I think that men in Dear John,  I Love Jane are primarily positively portrayed, which just makes those situations so much more difficult and interesting.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. I only keep books that I want to re-read at some point, and this is definitely one that’s going to go into my permanent collection.

(Check out the Dear John, I Love Jane website here!)

Weekly Link Round Up

AfterEllen posted about Sara Quin’s bibliophilia.

Bella Books posted Four Bella Debut Authors are “Lavender” to Alice B and Side Order of Love First Place at Rainbow Awards of Excellence.

I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell do I Read? posted Girls Are Not Chicks: A Feminist, Gender-Non Conforming and GLBTQ-Friendly Coloring Book.

Lambda Literary posted

Three Dollar Bills has been on a zombie theme and posted about the lack of queer zombies (and zombie survivors).

Women and Words posted Do you remember your first time?

Ivan E. Coyote was reviewed at Dorothy’s Closet.

Emma Donoghue reveals some details about her upcoming book at Lesbilicious.

Karin Kallmaker posted Making Up for Lost Time Returns to Print, Now in eBook.

Malinda Lo posted A valentine for my readers.

Nikki Rashan was posted about at Suite 101.

Amy Dawson Robertson posted Woot woot! Miles To Go receives the Alice B. Lavender Certificate.

Lara Zielinsky posted

This Is How We Do It by D. Alexandria was reviewed at Sistahs On the Shelf.

The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by S. Bear Bergman was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

The Butterfly Moments by Renee Bess was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

Red Rover by Liz Bugg was reviewed at Kissed By Venus.

Gunjo by Nakamura Ching was reviewed at Queer Authors 50 Book Challenge.

Head Game by G.D. Ellington and K.J. Thomas was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

As the World Dies: The First Days by Rhiannon Frater was reviewed at Three Dollar Bills.

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith was reviewed at Bonjour, Cass!

Stud Princess, Notorious Vendettas by N’Tyse was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

Taking a Chance at Love by Kesha Pride was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

Cyber Case by Nikki Rashan was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

Making Our Difference by Ericka K. F. Simpson was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch by Angelia Sparrow was reviewed at Three Dollar Bill Reviews.

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky by Jennifer Steil was reviewed at The Zen Leaf.

Be the Sun Again by Teryn was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

Dangerous Pleasures by Fiona Zedde was reviewed at Sistahs on the Shelf.

Guest Lesbrarian: Stefanie

This guest lesbrarian post is brought to you by Stefanie and was originally posted at Elevate Difference. Thank you so much, Stefanie!

Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s The Big Bang Symphony begins with one big bang and ends with another. A plane crashes on its way to McMurdo Station on Antarctica while carrying several of the continent’s summer residents, including Rosie Moore and Mikala Wilbo, two of the three female protagonists of the story. Everyone survives except for one unnamed woman; we find that her death and the crash subsequently inform the lives of the main characters, as we follow Rosie, Mikala, and Alice Neilson as they attempt to carry out their respective work on “the Ice.”

Each woman has come to Antarctica in search of something: for Rosie, a constant traveler with strained family relations, it is money toward the purchase of her first stable home; for Mikala, a renowned up-and-coming composer, it is a father she never really knew and an escape from the grief still following her after her partner’s death three years prior; for Alice, a geologist and the youngest among them, it is evidence that the earth has survived previous global warmings and will continue to do so. Each search revolves around at least one man in the characters’ lives, though the women’s burgeoning relationships with each other come to dominate and fortify one another in achieving their separate quests.

Rosie makes a strong impression on Mikala in the aftermath of the plane crash and ignites her romantic, sexual, and musical interests. Mikala cannot get Rosie out of her mind, even as she struggles each day to write the first music she has composed since her partner’s death. Rosie, in the meantime, becomes obsessed with one man, all too married, and distracts herself with another. Alice, committed on several levels to her advisor, finds herself pushed beyond her comfort zone and begins to emotionally react in ways she has never let herself do before. When an emergency strikes, the women are tested and find themselves opening up to experiences that had previously challenged them, causing them to change in a setting hostile to most growth.

The reader will quickly find that Bledsoe’s choice of setting—the gorgeous, yet deadly landscape of Antarctica—figures as a main character in and of itself rather than simply as a background against which the action of the novel plays out. Indeed, it is the ways in which the characters live on and with such an inhumane environment that propels each to reach out to one another to attempt to accomplish their goals and survive the short, harsh summer at the South Pole. Bledsoe consistently, if occasionally awkwardly, imbues each chapter of the novel with the themes of life and death, music, travel, and the relationship between an individual and the cosmos.

The Big Bang Symphony was a compelling read from the start, save perhaps the initial chapters written from Alice’s perspective, which can be frustrating in terms of her double devotion to both her mother and to the fastidious nature of science. Rosie’s and Mikala’s stories easily make up for this, however, and as Alice comes into her own on Antarctica, I soon found her narrative equally complex and interesting. In Rosie, Mikala, and Alice, Bledsoe clearly created characters who never would have met had it not been for the coincidence of living on the Ice together; their obvious differences make their incipient and meaningful friendship all the more captivating over the course of the story.

If you’d like to submit a guest lesbrarian post, email me at danikaellis@gmail.com

Weekly Link Round Up

Bella Books posted Tracey Richardson “Fiction Writing” Class Starts 2/15 and All About Love! Staff Picks for Valentine’s Day.

Edmonton Lesbian Book Club posted some discussions questions about The Well of Loneliness.

Elisa – My Reviews and Ramblings posted about reviewing queer books at Amazon.

F/F Fan Fiction Reader’s Corner posted about some lesbian fiction/fan fiction sites.

Friend of Dorothy Wilde posted 36 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Adult, which includes lots of lesbian books and is generally fantastic.

GLBT Promo posted a link to a preview of the first story in Demons of Paradise: Lesbian Paranormal Erotica.

GLBT Reading posted January Wrap Up.

Lambda Literary posted

Queerty posted about Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon, a queer coloring book.

Readings in Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Fiction posted Readings Celebrates Sapphic Signs and Post-Show: Readings Celebrates Romance.

A rant/discussion about Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Jeanette Winterson was posted at E.R. Womelsduff.

A thread about LGBT books is up at Reddit.

A write-up about Jacqueline Carey, author of the Kushiel series, was posted at Stella Matutina.

Ivan E. Coyote was interviewed at Butch Lab and finished her story “Rhymes with Pentecostal” in Xtra magazine.

Clifford Henderson was interviewed at Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Malinda Lo posted about getting a short story published.

Rachel Spangler posted about hunting out queer books at a conservative college library.

Jeanette Winterson was interviewed at BBC News.

From the Closet to the Courtroom: Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Nation by Carlos A. Ball was reviewed at The Pursuit of Harpyness.

Breaker’s Passion by Julie Cannon was reviewed at Queer Magazine Online.

It’s Not Really About the Hair by Tabatha Coffey was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Missed Her by Ivan Coyote was reviewed at the Globe and Mail.

The Price Of Salt by Patricia Highsmith was reviewed at Bookish Butch.

Head Trip by D.L. Line was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

The L Life: Extraordinary Lesbians Making a Difference by Erin McHugh was reviewed at Lesbian Life at About.com.

Rumpled Silk Sheets: Lesbian Fairy Tales edited by E.M. Lynley was reviewed at Queer Magazine Online.

Graceful Waters by B L Miller and Verda Foster was reviewed at F/F Fan Fiction Reader’s Corner.

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve by Adrienne Rich was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Her Temptress by TK Turner was reviewed at Bibrary Bookslut.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters was reviewed at eclectic/eccentric.

Pink by Lili Wilkinson was reviewed at Queer YA.

Joint review: Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon

If you haven’t read one of my joint review posts, this is how it goes: me and another blogger both read pick a lesbian book to read at the same time, then we discuss it, either through instant messages or by email. Anna from the feminist librarian read Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon with me, though I’m very late in posting our conversation. I mark for spoilers, so highlight if you’d like to read them, or head over to the feminist librarian for the uncensored version.

Anna: As a starter question, I’d be interested to know what you thought about the way Bannon portrays her character’s discovery of her same-sex desires (especially the way it is mediated to some extent by her mentor/roommate). It was an interesting contrast to the way the girls in our YA novels came to terms with their sexual orientation — primarily through their interaction with other girls and their own internal self-reflections.

Danika: You’re right, Beebo Brinker does explore a different way of coming to terms with her sexuality. It reminds me of the Well of Loneliness-style inversion theory of lesbianism, because she seems to really see her own (masculine) body as almost dictating her sexuality, and femme lesbians in this book, too, seem to be at least a little bit doubted, or seen as less queer. Beebo seems to discover her sexuality because of her appearance, not so much in relation to other people, which is interesting from a modern perspective, because we’ve really been trying to separate sexuality from gender identity. These earlier novels don’t do that, and it’s hard to separate a character’s gender identity from their sexuality, especially since they don’t even have the vocabulary for it.

The roommate is interesting, too, because it offers another instance of queer community, which has had different portrayals in the joint reviews I’ve done. Beebo Brinker has a primarily positive portrayal of community, with Beebo’s roommate as a mentor and guide, but it may also be because her roommate was a gay man, and therefore wasn’t directly competition…?

Anna: I think you’re right about Beebo (the character) being written in a way that signals her sexual orientation through her gender identity. That is, she’s a tomboy therefore she’s going to be gay and like girls sexually. There’s a fancy term for that concept of gender and sexual identity that I’m completely blanking on right now, but basically it’s a way of mapping sexual orientation onto the binary system of gender so that lesbian women = masculine (male-identified) and gay men = feminine (female-identified). This even turns up in science — like actual scientific theories — about brain chemistry. The assumption is that the brains of lesbian women will be organized more like the brains of straight men than they will straight women. That was an assumption that was pretty popular in the mid-twentieth century (and still is today). I imagine Anne Bannon didn’t even notice she was making those assumptions when she wrote the character. Whereas to us they’re glaringly obviously and seem clunky and stereotypical.

The other thing that’s stirred into the mix, although Bannon doesn’t come out and use these terms (at least not that I remember) is the butch/femme subculture of the pre-Stonewall era. We still have butch/femme as a subculture today, but it’s only part of the much larger queer community. From what I understand, the lesbian subculture of mid-century America was pretty saturated with butch/femme identities and role-playing. Even if you didn’t necessarily feel comfortable with either of those roles, you sort of had to pick one in order to situate yourself within the lesbian subculture. I’m probably overgeneralizing … but as I was reading Beebo I did think of that, and about the way in which Beebo is set up from the beginning as a masculine-identified lesbian, whereas her lovers are all female-identified.

And at least two of them (as you point out) are bi- or fluid (in today’s terminology) … the femme fatale whose name I’m temporarily forgetting and Venus, the film actress. Paula, from what I remember, is pretty confirmed in her interest exclusively in women, and seems interested in both femme women and butch women. So there aren’t necessarily any hard and fast rules in Bannon’s literary world about butch women only dating femme women, or vice versa. But there does seem to be a fairly firm … shall we call it a “typology” of lesbians being outlined in the novel? It sort of reads as an identification guide in places. For young lesbians in New York: here are your options!

Placing so much emphasis on Beebo’s appearance and on other people reading her as a dyke even before she herself is consciously aware of her same-sex desires is in some ways distinctly at odds with our present-day understanding of sexual orientation — that it is something which we know from within ourselves, and that we each have the right to self-identify our orientation and gender. On the other hand, the willingness of outsiders to identify Beebo as queer is certainly a phenomenon that’s alive and well in our culture — both among the queer subculture and within the mainstream population. We still very much read gender as a mark of sexual orientation even if we distance ourselves from that sort of conflation of sex and gender. As much as we like to say we’re beyond assuming that queer people fit certain stereotypes, we still enjoy (as a culture) crowing “we knew it all along!” when someone who’s gender-nonconforming turns out to be queer, and, conversely, expressing our disbelief when someone who is very gender-conforming comes out as a person with same-sex inclinations.

While gay men didn’t figure so heavily in the novel, what did you think of the way Jack and his boyfriends were portrayed? Do you see similarities and/or differences between the portrayal of lesbian identity and gay male identity in the novel?

Danika: Yes, it’s funny how that theory seems to carry through that seriously flawed theory from the ’20s to the ’60s. And you’re right, we’re still seeing traces of that. Gender identity and sexuality continue to be tangled together, and that’s with our attempts to separate the two. Beebo Brinker was also still in the early days of lesbian literature/pulp, when you couldn’t really have cliches, because there wasn’t enough to compare to. In those days, that assumption didn’t need to be explained: it seemed like common sense. It definitely doesn’t look that way from 2011, though.

I definitely saw some underlying butch/femme dynamics in Beebo Brinker. Again, it just seemed like common sense at that point, I think. Beebo was really aligned more with straight men, so of course she’d want a feminine woman. That was the standard for lesbian pulp, from what I remember. They tended to put two very feminine women on the covers, but the stories inside would be strictly butch/femme. It sort of suggests that they found it difficult to really wrap their heads around same-gender relationships, and would therefore try to slot it into heterosexual frameworks. Of course, butch/femme relationships in reality are rarely mere imitation of heterosexual relationships (they have great potential to challenge and subvert heterosexual norms), but the fact that they didn’t seem to be able to imagine a same-sex relationship that wasn’t butch/femme seems to suggest that lesbian pulp tried to imitate.

Hmmm, you’re right that there were some bi/fluid/pansexual/who-can-really-assign-a-sexuality-to-a-fictional-character characters, but weren’t those characters portrayed fairly badly? The femme fatale (I’m blanking, too) is clearly a villain and Venus [spoiler-ish] seems to be trying to get the best of both worlds: to hold onto a husband for security but still go out looking for women [end spoiler]. It doesn’t seem to be a very positive portrayal of bisexuality.

I think femme/femme relationships are touched on, but I don’t think we saw any butch/butch ones. I think in that era butches were more common, but femmes were more desirable in the bar world? So a femme dating a femme would be fine, but according to that ranking system, a butch wouldn’t want to be with a butch? Maybe I’m reading in terrible messages that aren’t really there at this point.

There’s definitely a “The Lesbian Guide to Lesbians in NY” aspect to it. In fact, apparently lesbian pulp pushed that a lot: Greenwich Village was painted as this almost mythical, utopian place for queer people, where you could find your community and a partner and be accepted. It supposedly encouraged a lot of women (like Beebo) to leave their hometown and go on this pilgrimage to Greenwich.

I think it’s the that order is reversed in our current conception of gender/sexual identity versus appearance. For Beebo, her appearance determined and shaped her gender and sexual identity, whereas now we think of people are expressing their gender/sexual identity through their appearance. I say gender and sexual identity because there are many ways to be read as lesbian (or gay or queer) through appearance: shaving one side of your head, or having short hair, or wearing rainbow accessories, etc. Gender expression through appearance is pretty obvious.

“As much as we like to say we’re beyond assuming that queer people fit certain stereotypes, we still enjoy (as a culture) crowing ‘we knew it all along!’ when someone who’s gender-nonconforming turns out to be queer, and, conversely, expressing our disbelief when someone who is very gender-conforming comes out as a person with same-sex inclinations.”

I agree completely. I’m not particularly femme (more a T-shirt/hoodie and jeans sort of person), but I’m far from butch, so I get a lot of disbelief when I come out, even to fellow queers. It gets old fast.

Jack as a character is positive: he’s sympathetic and seems real. As a representation of gay men, though, I’m not sure. He likes younger men, he takes in vulnerable people (which is kind, but also puts that person in a difficult spot, if he’s attracted to them), and [spoiler-ish] he doesn’t seem to be able to have a long-term relationship [end spoiler]. It’s odd, because he’s neither the stereotype of the white picket fence gay guy who’s been in a relationship for decades and had a kid, etc, or the stereotype of the complete sleeping around gay guy. He falls in love and he takes his relationships seriously, but they’re short. And they’re usually with younger, vulnerable men. I’m really not sure how I feel about it. What did you think?

Anna: Whew! Lots of good thoughts. I’ll try to take them in order.

On the subject of the prevelence of butch/femme dynamics in lesbian pulp specfically, I was thinking as I read about the tension between writing sexually-explicit lesbian stories for a lesbian audience, and writing novels that would get passed the censors … and which might possibly have a cross-over audience? I have no idea if lesbian-themed novels had any non-lesbian readers (i.e. straight men), the way girl-on-girl porn has today. But that might be one reason why constructing lesbian sex in a basically hetero fashion might be a selling point. And the same thing for the covers which show feminine women, regardless of the narratives inside them.

Reading Beebo has definitely made me interested in learning more about the history of lesbian pulps and the role they had in both queer and straight culture during the mid-twentieth century.

I agree with you that the bisexual (or similar; the labels were different back then) characters were depicted pretty shabbily in the narrative. This seems to me like an ongoing tension within lesbian subculture … that is, who “counts” as lesbian or whose sexual desires for women are legitimate (and why). We saw this to a lesser extent in the two previous books we’ve reviewed — both of which were coming out / coming-of-age narratives dealing with adolescents. Although Beebo is (I think?) a teenager, age eighteen or nineteen, she’s on her own with a job and everything — not a highschoolers, the way the girls in Annie on My Mind and Hello, Groin! are.

I felt like the character of Jack was even more of a charicature than the women in the story — he’s there as Beebo’s guide/mentor but his personality sort of melds with Greenwich Village. He’s a stereotype: “Gay Man of the 1950s” rather than a fleshed out character, I thought. Almost a metaphor for gay life in New York as it’s portrayed in popular culture? Less of a person than a literary trope.

I’m curious what you thought of the sex scenes in Beebo? I was particularly charmed by the first scene between Beebo and [spoiler] Paula [end spoiler], which actually read like it was written by someone who has had and enjoys lesbian sex! It was one of the scenes in which the butch/femme dynamic seems the least present, actually. Thoughts?

Danika: Yes, lesbian pulp was definitely aimed at a straight male audience in much the same way as girl-on-girl porn is now. Most lesbian pulp was written by straight men. And as for censors, lesbian pulp fiction (and gay pulp fiction and other queer pulp fiction) had to, by the end of the book, be read as condemning this behaviour in order to slip past the censors. Hence the usual story of one or both of the lesbian dying or going crazy or straight. [spoiler-ish] I guess Beebo Brinker was a later pulp, and that’s how it got away with a fairly happy ending? [end spoiler] [spoiler for Price of Salt] The Price of Salt was the first pulp with a happy ending (though I didn’t find it particularly happy, since I wasn’t a big fan of the relationship), and it was written in 1952, so I guess by the time Beebo Brinker was written it was more acceptable. [end spoiler] I do find pulp fascinating, not to mention entertaining in a totally over-the-top ridiculous way. I guess I can laugh at it now because I personally never had to deal with it being the main portrayal of lesbians, which would make it less funny.

That’s true, there does seem to be a sort of policing of the boundary around the label “lesbian” and who counts as a real lesbian. It reminds me of the inversion theory view of lesbians in Well of Loneliness and others, which looked down on feminine lesbians as not being as legitimate as butch lesbians in a similar way that bisexual/fluid characters don’t seem to be seen as legitimate in Beebo Brinker. I wonder if this has shifted in a different way in modern times, with the greater acknowledgement of trans* identities. I wonder if this policing takes place in the opposite way now, in which masculine lesbians may be seen as trans*, and therefore not “real” “legitimate” lesbians? I really am just wondering, because I have no idea if that is true, or if the same standards of femmes = not lesbian enough hold today. Or if maybe the label has gotten even narrower. I’m not sure. I think it probably depends on the community. Well, that was a bit of a tangent.

Beebo is supposed to be a teenager/young adult, yes, but I think we see a very different view of youth in Beebo Brinker than in Annie On My Mind or Hello, Groin. These more recent teen lesbian books seem to view being a young adult as a continuation of childhood. AOMM, especially, seemed to conceptualize the characters as being quite young and childish. In Beebo Brinker, and I think it’s probably a reflection of the time period, Beebo is really a young adult. She is an independent adult, though she is new to the situation. Of course, that might also be because she has struck out on her own and is not living with her parent. I’m not sure which direction causation is there.

That does make sense. I can definitely see how Jack is a personification of Greenwich Village.

I would hypothesize that the sex scenes in pulp are probably the easiest way to see whether the book was written by a Real Live Lesbian who has actually had sex with another women rather than a straight man who’s just imagining it. The sex scenes did seem quite sweet and without any troublesome power dynamics, from what I can remember. They just seemed to explore each other, which is refreshing. I also found it interesting that they contrasted each other’s bodies (I can’t remember which part of the book this was, though). Often in scenes of lesbian sex, there are descriptions of how similar the partners are, but in Beebo Brinker, Beebo’s body is seen as… not exactly male, but definitely masculine. So their bodies are seen as complementary, not identical. I’m still not sure how I feel about that (inversion theory peeking through again?), but it was sort of refreshing in that scene.

I think I’ll leave it to you to wrap it up, if that’s okay? I think we’ve given it a pretty good look. I really like doing these joint reviews with you; they always make me see new things in the books. Thanks again for the great discussion!

Anna: “I would hypothesize that the sex scenes in pulp are probably the easiest way to see whether the book was written by a Real Live Lesbian who has actually had sex with another women rather than a straight man who’s just imagining it.”

I like the way you put this, and couldn’t agree more! Even in non-pulp fiction, I’ve read “lesbian” sex scenes in fiction written by people who clearly have no idea how women make love. It’s embarrassing to read! And indicative of how little folks in general seen to understand about women’s sexuality and women’s bodies. I often wonder if gay men have the same frustration when reading about sex between men written by non-queer authors?

Yes, I think we have plenty for a post! Thanks to you, as well, for taking the time during your midwinter break to have this conversation, even though we were both a bit rusty on the details of the book.

If you’d like to do a joint review, even if you’re not a book blogger, feel free to email me and set one up!

Weekly Link Round Up

AfterEllen posted

Bella Books posted February 2011 “Just About Write” Reviews.

Edmonton Lesbian Book Club posted about The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall.

The Femme’s Guide posted a call for submissions for a femme zine.

Kissed By Venus posted its ezine, Venus Magazine and Stranger Than Fiction: Dykes and the Ivory Tower.

Lambda Literary posted

Lesbian Life at About.com posted an interview with Gina Daggett (of “Lipstick and Dipstick” in Curve magazine and author of Jukebox).

Lesbilicious posted Wales embraces LGBT History Month.

LGBT@NYPL posted Happy Birthday Gertrude Stein.

Literally Lesbian Book Review posted So You’re a Gay Lady… (Literally Lesbian Books You Really Should Have Read By Now if You’re a Lady Who Likes Ladies (TM)).

Queeries posted Whittall’s Fave 5 Books of 2010.

QueerType posted its thorough as ever February publishing notes.

Readings in Lesbian & Bisexual Women’s Fiction posted a Romance episode.

What Queer Folks Should Be Reading posted about

“Flashback through B.C. History: Little Sister’s appeals censorship ruling” was posted at the Globe and Mail.

“LGBT ebook and print releases January 2011” was posted at Elisa_Rolle.

Reports about the lesbian pulp fiction “too hot” to read at a Indian literature festival have been posted at serveral sites, including Spicezee.

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference LGBTQ meet and greet was posted about at the SCBWI website.

Renair Amin was interviewed at Cheril N. Clarke’s blog.

Emma Donoghue was interviewed at the New York Times.

Nicola Griffith posted about the outstanding mid-career queer novelists’ prize application.

Malinda Lo posted “Don’t judge a book by its cover [whitewashing and hiding queerness]”, and a comment pointed to a similar blog post at Robin Talley’s blog about queer YA books having less sexual covers than straight ones.

Lee Harlem Robinson has created a fiction blog: Trying to Throw My Arms Around the World, and it has been announced at Bibrary Bookslut and several other sites.

A home video of Gertrude Stein was posted at Booklicious, while one of her rejection letters is floating around through various blogs.

TK Turner was interviewed at Bibrary Bookslut.

59 Things You Didn’t Know About Virginia Woolf was posted at Flavorwire.

Protector of the Realm: Supreme Constellations by Gun Brooke was reviewed at Queer Magazine Online.

Unbearable Lightness by Porta de Rossi was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Life Mask by Emma Donoghue was reviewed at My Reading Challenges 2011.

Parallel Lies by Stella Duffy was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories by Elizabeth Freeman was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Girl Unwrapped by Gabriella Goliger was reviewed at Quill & Quire.

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith was reviewed at Bookish Butch.

Her Sweet Spot: 101 Sexy Ways to Find and Please It by Jude Schell was reviewed at Lesbian Life.

She Slipped and Fell by Shonda was reviewed at Lesbian Fiction Reviews.

The Light Fantastic by L.A. Tucker was reviewed at F/F Fan Fiction Reader’s Corner.

Rum Spring by Yolanda Wallace was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Dear John, I Love Jane edited by Candace Walsh and Laura Andre was reviewed at The Pursuit of Harpyness.

If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous was reviewed at The Zen Leaf.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters was reviewed at My Didn’t Happeners, bookmomma, and Running Lambs.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters was reviewed at On the Nightstand.

The Passion and Sexing The Cherry by Jeanette Winterson were reviewed at a grand and one.