Month: February 2017

Megan Casey reviews Dirty Work by Vivien Kelly

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Jo Summers is kind of a social worker. She is the office manager of a London hostel for the disadvantaged. I’m not sure we have the equivalent in the U.S—halfway house, maybe—but the residents of her house are ex-drug addicts, ex-prostitutes, or abused men and women who have been approved to live in inexpensive housing until they can get back on their feet. When one of Jo’s favorite residents is found dead of an overdose, Jo suspects foul play of some kind. The police, of course—including an old flame—don’t agree, so Jo is forced to investigate the death on her own. Other deaths follow in short order.

In the course of her investigation, she is thrown into contact with a number of savory and unsavory characters—some of which she spends the night with. As in all good mysteries, one interview leads to another to another and to another until at last she seems to understand what the hell is going on. It is kind of a unique novel in that there is not a similar novel that comes immediately to mind. Maybe Looking for Ammu, although the resemblance is slight.

The best thing about this book is its consistent quality in every aspect of the writing. Jo’s first-person point of view narrative is a thing of beauty, such as when she describes the relationship between one of her friends and his lover: “to say that the two of us didn’t get on is like saying that Tom and Jerry had their little differences of opinion.” The descriptions of the hostel and of its work for the community are interesting and progressive. The characters are well drawn and the mystery is logical and puzzling. Few books are so well done A-Z.

Having heaped up those particular praises, I need to add that, although good, it is not a great book. The characters are not quite interesting enough, the crime doesn’t have that extra twist that brings it up to Poe level. Kudos to Onlywomen Press, who are “Radical lesbian feminist publishers,” for printing a book whose life may not yet be over.

The real crime here is that such a good book has not yet had a single review either on Amazon or on Goodreads (except mine). I’m going to go ahead and give this one a 4 plus. It may not be on the level of a Nikki Baker or a Kate Allen, but it is close. It’s not going to appear on many Top-10 lists, but it is a book I would recommend to you or anyone. And I can’t say that for many books I read. Get in touch, Vivien. Let’s get Dirty Work formatted as an e-book. And maybe we can share a bottle of Glenmorangie.

For 250 other Lesbian Mystery reviews by Megan Casey, see her website at http://sites.google.com/site/theartofthelesbianmysterynovel/  or join her Goodreads Lesbian Mystery group at http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/116660-lesbian-mysteries

Julie Thompson reviews Undercover Girl: The Lesbian Informant Who Helped the FBI Bring Down the Communist Party by Lisa E. Davis

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Undercover Girl chronicles the exploits of Angela Calomiris, an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the 1940s. An otherwise easy-to-miss figure in history, author Lisa E. Davis goes behind-the-scenes to reveal a more complex story of Calomiris’s life. The depiction of her impoverished childhood in New York through her fifteen minutes of fame as a witness for the prosecution during the Smith Act trials of 1949, and how it clashed with the version that Calomiris presented to the press, is fascinating. Author Lisa E. Davis also explores the divisive nature of Red Scare tactics, the ways in which it pitted groups against each other, and promoted fear, xenophobia, racism, and homophobia. This provides essential context for Calomiris’s behavior and how her fabrications were positively received by mainstream American citizens, the press, and government agencies. Davis’s appraisal of her subject is critical and well-researched.

The Photo League (TPL, 1936-1951), a club focused on capturing the lives of ordinary folks, was Angela’s primary target during her time as an FBI informant. TPL drew the attention and ire of the FBI due to its advertisement of club classes in The Daily Worker, a newspaper of the Communist Party USA, and its photographs chronicling New York City life, which included images of African-Americans. Her bread and butter income came from divulging names and activities, as well as her own amateur photographs, of the TPL to the FBI. A closeted lesbian, Calomiris played up her public image as an “All-American girl” (read: America first, heterosexual). As Davis delves into Calomiris’s appearances in the media and on the witness stand, contradictory information proves challenging to untangle. Readers are treated to an epilogue of the informant’s life after the trial. Did she attain wealth and lasting fame, as some of her fellow informants did licensing their stories in film and television? Did her duplicitous and fabulist tendencies continue to isolate her from friends and community?

Davis draws from de-classified FBI reports available through the Freedom of Information Act; oral interviews with people who knew Calomiris during the 1940s-1950s; archival collections; film, radio, scripts, and sound recordings; newspaper and journal articles; theses; and books. All of these materials enrich the narrative and provide the work with a credibility lacking in its subject’s own life. Calomiris’s keen desire for fame and fortune is perhaps one reason she meticulously preserved her extensive collection of newspaper and magazine articles, correspondence, and other ephemera. The large collection was ultimately bestowed, through the executrix of her estate, to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York City.

An engrossing tale for researchers, history buffs, and casual readers alike. Undercover Girl: The Lesbian Informant Who Helped the FBI Bring Down the Communist Party is slated for release in May 2017.

You can read more of Julie’s reviews on her blog, Omnivore Bibliosaur (jthompsonian.wordpress.com)

Jess reviews Different for Girls by Jacquie Lawrence

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Different for Girls by Jacquie Lawrence, is a fast-paced and vibrant read that will keep you turning the pages and gasping for more.

Featuring a smorgasbord of central characters, its hard to not feel completely engulfed by Lawrence’s world including bar owner Cam and drug user Fran, stay-at-home-mother Brooke and wandering-eyed Nicole, their GBFs and baby daddies Ivan and Claude, closeted Gemma, her gay beard Kirby and her suspicious girlfriend Jude. My own confinement of these characters to stereotypes is an unjust judgement of predominantly complex and relatable individuals realised in totality throughout the book. In fact, the connectivity of the character lineup adds to the realism, with the plot casually shifting in and out of situations chapter to chapter. The broad themes in Different for Girls include motherhood, friendship, adultery, coming out and more broadly, self understanding vs public persona. The sex scenes (yes there are some!) aren’t over the top or seeking attention in any way–they fit well within the created world and represent their characters respectively.

The lesbian characters (more then 6!) are multifaceted and beautifully different (instead of tired, repeated cookie-cutter replicates). These are the exact sort of characters I crave for across the broader lesbian literature; oft littered with predictably questioning married women wanting to be freed from their straight bedroom boredom. My own imagination ran rampant with suggested plot twists, and I was repeatedly surprised by the written outcome.

I found myself constantly and vividly envisioning Different for Girls as a full-length feature film and I was delighted to find that a web-series is underway for release soon.

I’d recommend Different for Girls as one of the best modern lesbian fiction reads, if only in that Lawrence treats each character with respect and honesty. As always, it is so satisfying to have a nourishing meal after many mediocre snacks.

Stephanie reviews The Builders by Tonya Cannariato

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TW: Mental illness, anxiety, and sexual abuse
Let me start by saying that I really wanted to love this book. It’s categorized as sci-fi/fantasy, so I was excited to read a novel that blended same-gender loving characters and science fiction. Unfortunately, neither of these categories actually fit this novel all that well.
The novel’s protagonist is Tara Shifflet, a meeting planner on her way back to Atlanta after finishing a project in Milwaukee. She spots a gorgeous, strangely tattooed woman in her hotel bar, and eventually strikes up a conversation with her. Tara is not lesbian, but finds herself extremely attracted to this woman. Before she can connect in any meaningful way, an interloper interrupts them, someone that Navenah doesn’t know, but was expecting.  Tara berates herself and tries to put the brief interaction behind her (this will be important later). The next morning, she arrives at the airport to catch her flight back home, but is delayed because of what seems to be a first contact event on the runway. It’s only a lightshow, but it triggers an airport lockdown and Tara finds herself in quarantine with the other passengers scheduled to fly out that day.
Thus begins what I had hoped to be an adventure, and for the first quarter of the novel, we do get a bit of excitement as Tara and Navenah make their way from Milwaukee back to Atlanta.  Most of what drives this novel is the author’s commitment to laying bare Tara’s anxiety, although we only get snippets of the cause of her trauma until near the end of the novel. We do know that her mother (a high-profile politician) has had her committed, and that her therapy cat, Bear, is her lifeline when she’s experiencing high-levels of anxiety. While I understand Cannariato’s decision to center this issue in the novel, it’s also what slows it down.
My main frustrations with the book are pacing and plot. While the initial first contact event works to drive the tension and plot early in the novel, nearly halfway through, I was still baffled as to what was really going on. There are also shadowy federal agents that never seem to materialize, seemingly important characters that just disappear from the novel, and for a novel that purports to be sci-fi, there just aren’t enough aliens.  Additionally, we never learn name of Navenah’s planet, exactly why her species may soon go extinct, or how it is that Tara is needed for them to survive. Make no mistake, there is a LOT of exposition in this novel, but most of it centers on Tara’s anxiety. Even with the spaceship propelled by Tara’s energy, and the cocoon-like pods where life is created, I never got the sense that I was actually reading science fiction, and for me, that was the major drawback of this novel.
Finally, this novel contains minor and graphic depictions of emotional, psychological and sexual abuse, as well as the strategies that Tara uses to cope with it. Like I mentioned earlier, Cannariato is committed to revealing the nuances and challenges of persons suffering from anxiety as a result of child abuse, and for that I’m grateful, we need literature that does that. However, if you’re looking for science fiction that’s heavy on action and aliens, this may not be the novel for you.
TAGS: Science fiction, fantasy, Tonya Cannariato, S. Andrea Allen,

Lesbrary Round Up January 19 – February 4

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FallingInLoveWithHomonids   inanotherplacenothere   salt roads   theheartdoesnotbend   dreadnought

Autostraddle posted

BCLA LGBTQ Interest Group posted 2017 LGBTQ+ YA.

Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian posted Introducing “Interview with a Queer Reader” and A Recap of My First Month on Patreon and Four Queer Black Canadian Women Writers You Should Be Reading for Black History Month.

two-moons   darkly-beating-heart   dontexplain   YouSetMeOnFire   lez talk

LGBTQ Reads posted New Releases: February 2017.

Read Diverse Books posted Books With LGBTQIA Asian Protagonists – #ReadDiverse2017.

Women and Words updated their Hot off the Press and Coming Attractions page.

Ylva Publishing posted A Fine Romance: What Lesfic Readers Really Want.

“10 Works of Black Lesbian Short Fiction” was posted at WOC Reads.

first-position   blind-side-of-the-moon   As I Descended robin talley   queerly-remembered   huntress_arc_cover_web

Malinda Lo posted At the Women’s March on Washington.

Robin Talley was interviewed at LGBTQ Reads.

First Position by Melissa Brayden was reviewed at Frivolous Reviews.

Blind Side of the Moon by Blayne Cooper was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past by Thomas R. Dunn was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

under-her-spell   queer-trans-artists-of-color-2   venous_hum_cover   upstream   dna-hymn

Under Her Spell by Bridget Essex was reviewed at Friend of Dorothy Wilde.

Queer & Trans Artists of Color: Volume 2 by Nia King and Elena Rose was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Venous Hum by Suzette Mayr was reviewed by Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian.

Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

DNA Hymn by Annah Anti-Palindrome was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

The Life of Barbara Grier by Joanne Passet was reviewed at ALA GLBT Reviews.

oath      the-next-girl-tawanna-sullivan   year-of-needy-girls   kissing-booth   forward-abby-wambach

Oath, An Anthology of New (Queer) Heroes edited by Audrey Redpath was reviewed at Okazu.

The Year of Needy Girls by Patricia A. Smith was reviewed at Omnivore Bibliosaur.

Close to Home by Rachel Spangler was reviewed at Lesbian Reading Room.

The Next Girl & Other Lesbian Tales by Tawanna Sullivan was reviewed at Omnivore Bibliosaur.

Forward: A Memoir by Abby Wambach was reviewed at ALA GLBT Reviews.

The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories by A.C.Wise was reviewed at Friend of Dorothy Wilde.

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