For the majority of the twentieth century, Manhattan’s Lower East Side was an enclave of affordable housing (e.g. tenements) that housed lively immigrant cultures as well as many queer folk feeling the crunch of capitalism’s unceasing demands. Today, I’m discussing three books written by or recollecting the memories of queer Jewish women who lived andRead More
Gail Marlene Schwartz reviews Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman
“The fact that something could go wrong does not mean that we are in danger. It means that we are alive.” – Conflict is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman Just days after the American midterm election, it’s impossible to avoid the ever-growing polarization in the U.S. Author, playwright, and professor Sarah Schulman takes a new look at similar dynamicsRead More
Gail Marlene Schwartz reviews Maggie Terry by Sarah Schulman
“Everyone was in a state of confusion because the president was insane.” –Maggie Terry by Sarah Schulman Maggie Terry is longtime lesbian author Sarah Schulman’s second dive into the crime fiction genre (her first was The Sophie Horowitz Story). The novel explores the life of an addict, post-rehab, set against the backdrop of the TrumpRead More
Anna Marie reviews Girls, Visions & Everything and The Gentrification of the Mind
Over the summer I set myself the challenge of reading one Sarah Schulman book per month – my interest had been sparked because my queer platonic partner had written her dissertation on one of Schulman’s novels Girls, Visions & Everything and the dissertation was really great! I ended up reading 4, one each month of summer withRead More
Bessie reviews After Delores by Sarah Schulman
Sarah Schulman is a writer and ACTUP activist. Her novel After Delores was published in 1988. It’s a mystery set in the aftermath of a breakup, with the narrator trying to understand how to exist in the world now that her lover Delores has left. She creates a vivid portrait of New York City at theRead More
Danika reviews The Mere Future by Sarah Schulman
This was a puzzling book to me. The Mere Future takes place “In the future, when things are slightly better because there has been a big change.” I was expecting a dystopia, but I finished the book still not certain whether things were, in fact, slightly better. “The big change” is a political one, involving housing costsRead More