Product Description

George Stambolian, Terri de la Pena, Audre Lorde, Paul Monette, Edmund White, and James Manrique are just six of the writers represented in this collection of contemporary lesbian and gay fiction. Zahava has compiled a unique and necessary collection, selecting stories for their artistic power and treatment of topics that are significant in lesbian and gay life and politics today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1320117 in Books
• Published on: 1994-07-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 430 pages

From Booklist
In this anthology of mostly very recent (late 1980s to 1992) stories compiled for classroom use but mercifully lacking textbook impedimenta (study questions, etc.), editor Zahava strives to reflect the diversity of gay and lesbian lives. Overall, the contents are organized to mirror the human lifeline, beginning with the childhood fantasies of Audre Lorde and ending with Donald Vining's autobiographical protagonist in a nursing home and Becky Birtha's aged character, Jinx, still communing with her Gracie, gone some 15 years. The contributors include authors who have gained some mainstream recognition, such as Lorde, Edmund White, Dorothy Allison, and Paul Monette, as well as those who have broad small press and academic followings, such as Barbara Wilson, Louie Crew, Judith McDaniel, and the late John Preston. Novelist Valerie Miner's introduction adequately surveys the gay and lesbian American writers of an earlier day. Although prepared to aid such academic pursuits as Sapphic modernism, biomythography, gender studies, and anti-Semitism, the ambitious volume's contents are entertaining enough to reward the nonstudent reader. Marie Kuda

Customer Reviews

A Most Excellent Collection

Writing culled from published material, 1982 to 1994, has a diverse selection of stories on many topics including -

Childhood
Growing Up
Coming Out
Finding community
Families
Oppression
Resistance
Bisexuality
Relationships
Friendships
AIDS
Aging
Dying

One of my favorite authors, Lee Lynch, is a contributor so I snapped this right up.

My favorites were from -

Audre Lorde
Donna Allegra
Armistead Maupin
Terri de la Pena
Jewelle L. Gomez
Shay Youngblood
Dorothy Allison
Leslea Newman
Lee Lynch
Ruthann Robson
Judith McDaniel
Barbara Wilson
Valerie Miner
Jess Wells
John Preston
Edmund White
Rebecca Brown


Valerie Miner wrote an excellent introduction. I would have enjoyed a more thorough profile of contributors, especially those who I am not familiar with and perhaps a list of their other titles.