Danika reviews Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

I’m going to be honest, I have no idea how to review this book. I loved Bechdel’s first comic memoir, Fun Home, so I was very excited to pick up Are You My Mother? And it definitely does have some of the best elements from Fun Home: the writing is amazing, the art is beautiful, and the entire book is intricate and complex. I feel like I’d have to read this at least four times before I can really feel like I “get it” at all.

Where Fun Home used the family house as a framing device for the story, Are You My Mother? relies on psychoanalysis, dream analysis specifically. Fun Home also had literature references throughout, and Are You My Mother? does reference Virginia Woolf several times, but most of the books mentioned are psychoanalysis books. It also revolves around Bechdel’s visits with her psychiatrist(s). (This is, of course, not to mention the central theme of her relationship with her mother.)

Bechdel’s relationship with her mother is more complex than her relationship with her father, partly because they can’t just be compared based on sexuality or gender roles, and partly because Bechdel’s mother is still alive, and resists being rewritten into one narrative.

I didn’t enjoy Are You My Mother? quite as much as Fun Home because a lot of the psychoanalysis went over my head, and I enjoyed the literature references in Fun Home more than the dream analysis in Are You My Mother? That isn’t to say the Are You My Mother? isn’t fantastic, however, and I expect that I will enjoy it more after a few re-reads.

Link Round Up

      

Bella Books posted Interview with Janet Mason, Author of Tea Leaves.

Bibrary Book Lust posted Help Wanted – Looking for Contributing Reviewers and GIVEAWAY – The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves.

Dog Ear Audio started a Kickstarter project for their Safe Harbour by Radclyffe audiobook voiced by actress Diane Gaidry.

Elisa posted

      

Lambda Literary posted a mini link round up.

Novels About Queer People posted Queerness in Tamora Pierce’s novels.

Out In Print Queer Book Review posted Saints & Sinners 2012 Wrap-Up.

Shelly’s LGBT Book Review Blog posted Lesbian and Gay Fiction for the Kindle Updates.

Women and Words posted Mystery or Romance? and Getting Over a Heartbreak Rejection.

      

An excerpt from Darkness Embraced by Winter Pennington was posted at SheWired.

R. E. Bradshaw posted Choices.

Sarah Diemer posted Short Story, “The Witch Sea,” Released for FREE on Amazon!

Karin Kallmaker posted One Million Moms! Look! LESBIAN Superheroes!

Catherine Lundoff posted

Andi Marquette posted “What gave you that idea…”

Rebecca Walker was interviewed about her book Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness at Lambda Literary.

      

Lythande by Marion Zimmer Bradley was reviewed at Good Lesbian Books.

Waiting in the Wings by Melissa Brayden was reviewed at Piercing Fiction.

One In Every Crowd by Ivan E. Coyote was reviewed at Quill & Quire.

Sarah, Son of God by Justine Saracen was reviewed at Piercing Fiction.

Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation by Christine Stark was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Steam-Powered II edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft was reviewed at SFFic.

Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall was reviewed at The Can-Lit Thing.

Riding Fury Home by Chana Wilson was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Guest Lesbrarian Jeanne Courtney review Riding Fury Home: A Memoir by Chana Wilson

It reads like the very best fiction, with vivid details that stimulate all the senses, heart pounding scenes that keep the pages turning, and comical anecdotes that are both thought-provoking and fun. But this story is true, and relentlessly truthful, told without a hint of sensationalism or sentimentality.

Personal experiences are deftly interspersed with Wilson’s take on the turbulent, expansive social times in which she came of age. She keeps the narrative intimate and specific, while paying tribute to the political movements that profoundly influenced her life and the life of her mother, who, prior to feminism and gay liberation, was terrorized and debilitated by psychiatric efforts to cure her of her love for women.

Wilson carries the reader directly into emotions that are hard to face, much less write about – shame, grief, rage, even the feeling of not being able to feel – and she comes out unequivocally on the side of hope. For me, that persistent hope was the gift at the center of this delightful read. I got to witness, through one woman’s story, how resilient we humans can be, and how as we grow, we ultimately seem to lean toward joy.

Review by Jeanne Courtney

Jasper reviews Steam-Powered II: Lesbian Steampunk Stories

Bottom line: A collection of steampunk stories starring lesbians that deliberately tries to stretch beyond the Anglo-centric, but still operates within a Western-Europe-dominated colonial world. Many stories are good; only one is terrible; none except perhaps the final two pieces challenge steampunk conventions quite as hard as they might mean to.

Content warnings (may contain spoilers): Vary by story. Death of a sentient non-human, deaths of plot bystanders, deaths of siblings, murder by police, policy brutality, murder of a lover, death of protagonist, threat of forced/unwanted marriage, knocking out of a protagonist, loss of hands/limbs/eyes (in backstory), abusive relationship/abusive breakup

How does it treat women/same-sex relationships? Varies by story. In some stories, same-sex relationships are not the majority but are still seen as unremarkable. In others, same-sex relationships must be closeted for safety or are mocked with slurs.

Does it have explicit sex scenes?: No. Sex scenes are not the emphasis, and are usually fade to black.

Would I read it again? Yes, though not the entire collection. There were a number of stories that would be worth visiting again.

Would I publish it? Yes, but not with all of the stories that are currently in the collection–a handful of them need either axing or heavy editing. I would also have some hesitation about publishing it without an introduction; I feel like it needs some examining. The concluding essay serves as a kind of coda, an anti-introduction, that made me think back on what I’d read–and if that was the intention in its placement, than that was very, very clever, putting it at the end. The collection seems to try to challenge Victorian-England-centric steampunk with stories still set in worlds that have England (or at least Western Europe) as a major power. If the collection were to rise to the call of the final essay, I feel like England would be a minor power in these stories’ worlds. (NOTE: This review covers an ARC, so there may very well be an introduction in the final published version.)

I picked Steam-Powered II up expecting lesbian steampunk erotica. I’d seen the slightly seductive pose of the woman on the first Steam-Powered‘s cover, and it colored my expectations. Though I would still love to read a little steel-on-skin clockwork-vibrators erotica, I’m content with what Steam-Powered II actually turned out to be: a collection of not-set-in-England steampunk stories that happen to star lesbians.

Steampunk, like medieval-inspired fantasy, largely romanticizes the past. Instead of romanticizing the feudal past of questing knights and new, fragile social orders in need of protection, it romanticizes the Industrial Age and colonialism. Or, at least, that’s what the mainstream version of steampunk does—and this collection clearly intends to challenge that, with stories set in the Congo, Malaysia, China, the U.S… Though I don’t think the stories (except maybe Zen Cho’s “Terracotta Bride” and Amal El-Mohtar’s nonfiction essay “Writing Down the House”) manage to work away from the Anglocentricity of most steampunk, they all put perspectives on steampunk that I don’t think I’d see in the usual “jaunty clockwork-powered airship-riding corset-wearing superhero team fights crime” novel.

Reviews by story:

“Journey’s End,” by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall. A sentient airship chooses its chief engineer to accompany it on its last voyage. Pleasant, but a lot of space is spent on exposition explaining the workings of sentient airships, and I had a hard time suspending disbelief for part of the conclusion. (Set in the U.S.)

“Amphitrite,” by S.L. Knapp. A submarinist steals her own submarine and meets a mermaid. A young, pretty, curious mermaid. Definitely the sexiest of the stories. (Set in the ocean, between the U.S. and Cuba.)

“In the Heart of Yellow Mountain,” by Jaymee Goh. Two rivals find their way through a labyrinth to complete a government test and win positions at court. One of the clunkier stories, with workaday writing and plotting that created no feeling of danger and led to no climax. (Set in China, I think.)

“Playing Chess in New Persepolis,” by Sean Holland. An engineer from Amsterdam competes in a clockwork chess contest that draws competitors from all over the world. Readable, with a bit of a femme fatale, rakish flair at the ending, but easy to forget. (Set in Persia, with a protagonist from Amsterdam.)

“A Thousand Mill Lofts Gray,” by Jeannelle Ferreira. One of my favorites. A simple, quiet, slowly developing love story between a Russian American seamstress and an upper-class reformer. It’s not an innovative story, but it’s sweetly written, though the ending didn’t have enough oomph to satisfy me. (Set in the U.S.)

“Dark Horse,” by A.M. Tuomala. A mercenary meets an English secret agent in Istanbul. Forgettable and murky. (Set in Turkey.)

“The Return of Cherie,” by Nisi Shawl. Romance and politics overlap as a small group of agent/actors gather in Everfair. Out of all of the stories in the collection, the characters in this one have the most complex, realistic-seeming relationships, all influenced by their pasts and by contradictory worldviews and wishes. It also deals head-on with the poison of racism in a relationship. Shawl’s blog says it’s part of a novel-in-progress; consider me sold on the final novel. (Set in an alternate version of the Democratic Republic of Congo.)

“One Last Interruption Before We Begin,” by Stephanie Lai. An employee in an airship port dreams of travel–and then meets an attractive English pilot. Another favorite of mine, for the clear, detailed writing, the alternative technology, and the ending, in which the protagonist is brave in a way fictional heroes rarely get to be. (Set in Malaysia.)

“Selin That Has Grown in the Desert,” by Alex Dally MacFarlane. As a Turkmeni woman dreads her impending marriage, two strangers with a secret arrive. Another story with clear, uncomplicated writing, commenting quietly on globalization. (SPOILER: It also features an asexual character. END SPOILER.) (Set in I’m not quite sure what the modern equivalent is. Turkmenistan, maybe?)

“Granada’s Library,” by Rebecca Fraimow. One of the three overseers of the Great Library of Granada (a joint Muslim/Jewish/Christian institution) must face up to internal turmoil and the threat of revolution from without. Though I found the ending hard to visualize (I’d need a map or sketches to show me how exactly the Library is set up inside), this story criticizes both thoughtless revolution and rigid adherence to tradition. It suggests that sometimes new can be built without tearing down old–not a bad message. (Set in Spain.)

“The Canary of Candletown,” by C.S.E. Cooney. A voiceless girl who grew up in the coal mines falls in love with a disillusioned revolutionary. Pretty, twisted, and surreal, this one has the dystopic, doomed vibe that I associate with the New Weird and authors like China Mieville. (Set in the U.S.)

“Fruit Jar Drinkin’, Cheatin’ Heart Blues,” by Patty Templeton. Two backwoods women–a moonshiner and an engineer–try to break up (and get back together) via backstabbing, destruction, and walking stills. Cute, with a catchy, folktale-like tone to the writing and the plot (I could imagine someone writing a folksy ballad about events in the story), but it all wraps up in a pat, easy way that’s a little twee. (Set in the U.S.)

“Deal,” by Nicole Kornher-Stace. When the law comes looking for a failed-prospecter-turned-engineer, her partner has to lie for her. I wouldn’t have put this story next to “Fruit Jar,” as the pieces share similarities in setting, tone, and plot, though I like this one least of the two. The stories-within-stories flow along with a cheeky, American tall-tale feel, but the framing narrative left me confused (if you read this story, tell me, what’s up with the disappearing door?). (Set in the U.S.)

“Not the Moon but the Stars,” by Shveta Thakrar. In a competition for both her love and professional dreams, a jeweler/engineer struggles with her mixed feelings about new technology. Far and away my least favorite story in the collection. Though it starts out clear and matter-of-fact, it falls apart into a rush of blurred, fantastical imagery and wooden character reactions to unbelievable events. (Set in India.)

“The Terracotta Bride,” by Zen Cho. A young woman dies and finds herself married off as a second wife in the afterlife. Soon, her husband takes an experimental automaton as his third wife. As I read this, I thought, “Is this steampunk?” I’m used to steampunk incorporating pseudo-fantasy, but not direct-fantasy elements—bits and pieces of “science” that have a superstitious, magic-like quality to them, but not overt fantasy settings like the underworld. But I think it works. Of all the stories in the volume, I think it may come closest to punching a hole through steampunk conventions while still retaining an essential “steampunkiness.” After all, there’s no more direct way to show a new order of mechanization trying to find some place in (or trump) an older world of mysticism than to have someone build a robot in Hell. And, of course, this isn’t a Western hell, but a Chinese-myth-based “hell” and a Chinese-myth-based understanding of life, death, and rebirth. Western colonialism can touch such a setting only indirectly. (Set in the afterlife, based on Chinese mythology.)

“Winding Down the House: Taking the Steam out of Steampunk,” by Amal El-Mohtar. An essay on steampunk conventions, calling for challenging and expanding what “steampunk” can be. I love this as a coda, particularly right after “Terracotta Bride,” which had me questioning whether I thought it really was steampunk. According to El-Mohtar’s essay, it is and it’s more of what steampunk should be. Or, more accurately, readers should be more willing to accept new combinations of fantasy, SF, and historical elements under the genre label “steampunk.” A critical conclusion to the volume that left me thinking.

Danika reviews The Difference Between You and Me by Madeleine George

I have a soft spot for lesbian teen fiction. Mostly because I feel like it’s a really important niche. It’s when many people first start coming out or questioning their sexuality, and it is really reassuring to be able to see a representation of yourself in fiction, especially one that reassures you that it can be okay. Unfortunately, the list of lesbian teen books is quite short. (Good Lesbian Books has a good list.) So I was excited to get another lesbian teen book to review, especially one that is from a bigger publishing company that has the chance to be more widely distributed.

I started The Difference Between You and Me at about hour sixteen of the readathon, and it was a great choice to hold my attention at that point. I’ll list my impressions as I stated them during the readathon, because I think they give you a good idea of the book. (Minor spoilers ahead)

  • Hour 16: I like it! Jesse’s parents are awesome, and I can’t help but love her anti-assimilative little queer self.
  • Hour 17: I’m still really enjoying it, but oh, the angst! Not in a write-dark-poetry way, just in an overwrought teen relationship way. Emily, why can’t you see that being with Jesse is worth risking your reputation? WHY?
  • Hour 18: Now there’s an anti-Walmart subplot! Who doesn’t love that?
  • Hour 19: I take back what I said before! Jesse, can’t you see she’s wrong for you? WHY?

It really captures the drama of high school romance, where everything is high stakes and rollercoasters of emotion. It was also interesting to read a lesbian teen book that isn’t so much SOULMATES FROM FIRST GLANCE as it is a more typical high school relationship, which may be very emotional, but is unlikely to last forever.

I really loved the main character, Jesse, and her activist, weirdo tendencies. I haven’t read a lot of teen books that have main characters that didn’t fit in because they choose not to fit in. Because they really are weird, not just “uncool”. What can I say, I related to her. And I’m a sucker for an anti-capitalist subplot.

The writing was also compelling. Malinda Lo posted about the excellent kissing descriptions in The Difference, and I have to agree with her. I stopped and read out a different kissing passage to my partner when I read it the first time. I think I will finish the review with it to entice you to pick up The Difference Between You and Me, because if you haven’t noticed, I really enjoyed it.

Emily’s face, so sunny-cheerful in everyday life, so bright and cute and alert, deepens and darkens when Jesse is kissing her. Her eyes fill with smoke and fall half closed, her cheeks flush. Sometimes she slurs her words. A lazy, wicked expression comes over her face, like she’s a little bit hungry and a little bit dangerous—good for nothing, ready to do damage. She can stop Jesse’s heart when she looks at her like this.

Kristi reviews Lemon Reef by Robin Silverman

Jenna is shocked to receive the phone call that told her that her high school love has died from a heart attack while diving at Lemon Reef. Even though they had not been in contact, the shock of Del’s death is overshadowed by old memories and by a request from her ex’s family to fight Del’s husband Talon for custody of Del’s daughter, Khila. As a court Commissioner, Jenna has dealt with many custody battles, and she knows that Talon with his penchant for drugs will be worse for the child than Del’s family. As Jenna deals with coming back home and memories from her past with Del, she soon learns that Del’s death may not be the accident it seems.

Silverman tells the tale through Jenna’s experiences, alternating the story between present day events and the past moments that brought Jenna and Del together — and drove them apart. An intricately layered story of first love and its failure to be a “happily ever after,” Lemon Reef is actually not (as one might suspect) a story of being unable to move on from a lost love. Instead, it is one of laying the past to rest: Jenna deals with Del’s family for the sake of Khila, which allows her to come full circle in her relationship with Del. While the mystery within the book is not so mysterious, the lengths that Jenna and Del’s sisters go to discover the truth about Del’s death give an intensity of discovery to the storyline that most mystery readers will enjoy.

I did struggle a bit with the flashbacks — the intensity of those parts seem to overshadow what was happening in the present. While knowing who these characters were in the past was important to understand many of their motivations, it did make the transition from Jenna’s perspective to her perception of Del trickier to go between without feeling a bit lost. What solidified Jenna’s experience through the book was the final conversation with Del’s daughter, Khila. Without giving too much away, this moment is where it all comes full circle for Jenna. Lemon Reef will be enjoyed for its bittersweet taste of remembering the past and continuing to live in the present.

Note: This book will publish on July 17, 2012. This review copy was provided by the publisher through NetGalley.

Link Round Up

      

Autostraddle posted Read A F*cking Book: Win A Copy of ‘The Letter Q’.

Bibrary Book Lust posted about the Hop Against Homophobia.

Elisa posted

GLBT Promo Blog posted Storm Moon Press – Hop Against Homophobia.

The Hop Against Homophobia was on lots of queer book blogs May 17-20th.

      

Kool Queer Lit posted Homophobic Discrimination of the LGBTQ Writing Community.

Out In Print Queer Book Review posted What Part of the Brain Controls Book Reviews?

Out On the Shelves Library posted Excerpt of the week: Like Coming Home: Coming-Out Letters edited by Meg Umans.

The Outer Alliance posted Outer Alliance Podcast #20: Joan Slonczewski.

Shelly’s LGBT Book Review Blog posted Hot Gay and Lesbian Fiction for the Amazon Kindle.

Women and Words posted Freebies as a promotional tool.

      

“Val McDermid, The Women’s Press, and Lesbian Detective Fiction” was posted at Pankhearst.

“Straight Woman Doesn’t Understand LGBT romance books.” was posted at ONTD_Political.

      

Carol Anshaw was interviewed at Lambda Literary.

Jeanne Cordova was interviewed at Windy City Media Group.

emily danforth was interviewed at Prairie Schooner.

Sarah Diemer posted Sparkle Party: DAY TWO! A Free Novel of Magic and Awesomeness! and Sparkle Party: DAY THREE! The One Year Anniversary of THE DARK WIFE, and the First Part of the FREE Audio Book!

KB Grant posted Hop Against Homophobia: Popping My Intolerance Bubble.

Sarah Toshiko Hasu posted Reading, Reviews, and Library Love.

      

Karin Kallmaker posted One Million Moms – Lesbians French Kissing!

Malinda Lo posted

Catherine Lundoff posted Book tour! and Some info on book distribution.

Sinclair Sexsmith posted 30 DAYS, 30 BLOG POSTS: THE VIRTUAL SAY PLEASE TOUR IS OVER with all the links of the tour.

Michelle Tea “has teamed up with City Lights Publishers to launch the Sister Spit imprint” and was interviewed at Poets & Writers.

Jeanette Winterson was interviewed at The Age.

      

When We Were Outlaws by Jeanne Cordova was reviewed at Tenured Radical.

Autobiography of Childhood by Sina Queyras was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Hidden Hearts by Ann Roberts was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

More reviews are linked at the Lesbrary’s twitter!

Danika reviews Lesbian Pulp Fiction edited by Katherine V. Forrest

I didn’t know what to expect from this book. I requested it from Cleis press after being blown away by their title Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue, and I hoped this one would be similar, but focused on lesbian pulp. Actually, it’s a collection of excerpts from lesbian pulp books from 1950-1965, with a short introduction that discusses lesbian pulp in general. I devoured the introduction, because if there’s anything I like more than lesbian books, it’s lesbian books about lesbian books.

Following the intro are excerpts from more than 20 novels. They are a great way to get familiar with the feel of lesbian pulp. I have always been amused by the lurid covers and overwrought descriptions of lesbian pulp, but this collection show that there is more appeal to this genre. Some excerpts show that there was great writing done between those scandalous covers, while others show the authentic representations of lesbian life that was being published alongside by-straight-men for-straight-men pulp. I was surprised at the variety in the collection. I had assumed there was a sort of formula for lesbian pulp: girl meets girl, girl gets girl, girl has tragic and sordid love affair, girl goes insane/dies. These stories don’t seem to all fit in the same mould.

I would not recommend trying to read these straight through–like I did–however. The excerpts are chosen well; they give you enough information to be able to piece together the general story, but they are only about 20 pages on average, and by the time you have figured out the thread of the story and gotten into it, it’s already ended. Unlike reading  a short story collection, these are not meant to be read in isolation, so they do require some mental energy to determine context. That is not a negative on the book at all, though! They just would be more enjoyable as something to dip into occasionally, not to try to absorb all at once. If you are interested in lesbian pulp fiction (and why would you not be?!), Lesbian Pulp Fiction should be on your list.

Anna K. reviews Inferno: A Poet’s Novel by Eileen Myles

Poet and former artistic director of St. Mark’s Poetry Project Eileen Myles—who is also a lesbian, although “lesbian poet” is an identity with which her protagonist grapples—presents Inferno as “a poet’s novel,” but what keeps it from nonfiction is unclear. It reads as a rambling, associative, nonlinear memoir of her career, as she name-drops from 1970s Greenwich Village to Germany (via reading tour with Semiotext[e]). On her website, Myles explains thatInferno “chronicles the adventures of a female writer in hell very much like Eileen Myles. Inferno is actually a künstlerroman,” a type of bildungsroman that portrays an artist’s development.

The second part of the novel is presented as a grant proposal, complete with an abstract. Yet the style and form do not change (except for the occasional self-conscious note on whether what she’s writing belongs in a grant proposal). Throughout the book, Myles embeds her poems. Although I no doubt missed much in the way of literary hearkening to Dante’s Divine Comedy and references to decades of the New York poetry scene, Myles’s writing is generally so big and beautiful that I was rewarded for powering through the only difficult part (surprisingly little amid all this timeless, sometimes placeless personal narrative)—i.e., in-depth descriptions of her plays.

Myles will teach you about life and living in such a roundabout way that you can’t help but accept her wisdom. She describes watching her dog take a shit, how her love makes her attuned to the faintest changes as her dog prepares. It’s the kind of book in which you highlight pages and scribble in the margins, only to return to the fragments and wonder what you were thinking.

The narrator relates how she became a lesbian (her phrasing) and her loves and lovers. She writes, “There’s a moment in a woman’s life when she discovers she can have sex with as many people as she wants. Suddenly everyone is a potential partner. That’s when men get in the act which is why lesbianism isn’t really a thing it’s just this unbridled lust. It’s like god. If writers are the only people, I mean the last ones who have lives lesbians are the only people who have sex.” Her descriptions of sex are artful and hot and rear up unexpectedly as the book winds to a close.

What I was left with is akin to what struck Myles’s as she read Deleuze’s Masochism: “He said the masochist habitually lays out a story, a fetishized chain of objects or events, in which the seeker must thoroughly immerse herself in order to reach the unexposed but desired conclusion. Which was…” On reading poetry, she writes, “Succumb, don’t resist. Because we do get to choose what we are succumbing to. We create worlds out of what we put into our heads. I don’t know about you. It’s why I read.”

Agreed. Succumb.

Casey reviews Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn

Vancouver writer Amber Dawn’s Sub Rosa, published in 2010 by the radical and remarkable publishing house Arsenal Pulp Press, is a fantasy novel that is both familiar and fantastic. It deals with (what should be) a recognized reality in its depiction of gutsy, gritty, strong women doing sex work in Vancouver’s East end. But Dawn—a writer gutsy, gritty, and strong like her characters—has imagined a world that is a glittery yet tough fable twist on the story of a teenage runaway turned sex worker. Little, the ironically named plucky protagonist, is one of those so-called lost girls whose stories the newspapers tell after it’s too late to save them. Little, however, does not need saving: she is decidedly capable of negotiating her options, no matter how slim they might seem. When Little is initiated into the magical street called Sub Rosa, home to a community of eclectic (female and male) sex workers, she is soon a legend. In fact, she is the heroine of her own story, navigating her position in her new found family of sister-wives, her house Daddy, her often eccentric colleagues, and her new-found magical power. Little also battles the literally and figuratively shady area known as the Dark, where she confronts a few different kinds of zombies: men from whom she must earn her dowry in order to become a full-fledged Glory—the term for working girls on Sub Rosa, sexual assault, and her own haunting memories from her past in the city, which are suppressed by the amnesiac climate of Sub Rosa. The surprise ending of the novel is like Little
herself: complex and both inspiring and difficult.

What was a little surprising for me in a different way was the relative lack of queer content in the novel—obviously something I’m looking to highlight for the lesbrary. Sub Rosa is a fascinating read nonetheless and I wouldn’t say the novel suffers in any way or that I enjoyed it less because of this lack. But because Dawn is a queer identified writer, was voted Hero of the Year in 2008 by Xtra! West (Vancouver’s gay and lesbian newspaper), and is the director of programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, I was expecting a bit more queer content in her debut novel. And, while Arsenal Pulp Press doesn’t exclusively deal with queer authors and topics, it does have a fantastic record of publishing queer writers’ stories; they generously sent me a copy of Dawn’s novel to review for the blog (thanks to the impressive team at Arsenal!). That said, Little does have a short-lived school-girl flirtation and a few make-out sessions with a fellow Glory named Isabella, who is reliving recently recovered memories of a relationship with another girl at her Catholic school for orphans. I also thought that Little’s relationship with the character First—the first recruited woman/wife of Little’s family—was a tad homoerotic even though it was mostly one of maternal mentorship. In short, Sub Rosa is a full banquet of sex work activism and dark sparkly fantasy with a little dash of queer on the side. If this sounds like an appetizing meal to you—and it should—then let yourself fall, like Alice did long ago when faced with the rabbit hole, into the world of Sub Rosa.