Literary Lesbians

Carmen Maria Machado, 2019

In her memoir that chronicles an abusive relationship with another woman, Machado uses “the dream house” as metaphoric container for the fantasies and realities that unspool in any relationship. This structure allows for a sharper perspective on volatile experiences: “The night she chased me in the Dream House and I locked myself in the bathroom, I remember sitting with my back against the wall, pleading with the universe that she wouldn’t have the tools or know-how to take the doorknob out of the door.”

Jeanne Córdova, 2011

It's challenging to invoke the mindset of the 1970s, its certainty that the world would become more just because we willed it to be, but Jeanne Córdova does so in this memoir of her activism. She demonstrates how the struggle for gay and lesbian liberation was closely aligned with other progressive movements and when they conflicted. “In order to survive, maybe all of lesbian-kind had to leave the house of the father, the house of men. Maybe we were at a turning point in history where men and women could do more good by working separately.”

Alexis De Veaux, 2014

Past, present, and future blur in this innovative, hybrid novella. How does the construction of gender hinder the evolution of personhood? How can we carry through the world a consciousness of the legacy of ancestors? How do these factors shape or inhibit desire? “Whenever Jules asked, am I a girl or boy, Ruby said, both and that’s normal for you; figuring that the simplest answer was the best, and being consistent was loving. But both was only half true, for the child was also neither of the two acceptable sexes; and as time went on, first Ruby and then Ramses slowly began to refer to Jules with a new pronoun: bothneither, which, whenever Jules was around they shortened to bn. To the child’s ears, the Southern accent of the parents made the new pronoun sound like ‘be in.’”

Carol Anshaw, 1997

When swimmer Jesse Austin loses the gold medal at the 1968 Olympics, it is a turning point. Anshaw fragments the novel into three distinct and equally plausible possibilities for Jesse’s life going forward. “And then the screen door opens and there—after all this time, after all this—there she simply is. Jesse looks up at Marty Finch and feels time warp around the two of them as they stand in its fold.”

Raquel Gutiérrez, 2022

These lyrical essays by Raquel Gutierrez explore queer and Latinx identities, reflected through the lens of art and rooted in the landscape of the Southwestern U.S. “He was no longer the nervous baby butch dyke in punk patched denim jackets with cut-off sleeves and dilapidated combat boots. He was no longer the homeless baby butch dyke, kicked out of a religious home, disowned by a family of Jehovah’s Witness cannery workers. … He was our young man now.”

Julie Marie Wade, 2014

A life is not a cohesive narrative, Julie Marie Wade demonstrates in her collection of essays that comprise a memoir. Constructed of scraps of lyrical imagery and flashes of time, past and present blurring, the memoir chronicles a history of falling, literally as from a swing and metaphorically as surrendering to love. “But then she kisses her, despite her best intention not to, and the popcorn spills—confetti across their knees, petals nestling in skirt pleats.”

Octavia E. Butler, 2023

In 1993, when this novel was published, how could Octavia E. Butler have so presciently predicted the reality of 2024, in which this book is set? She portrays a United States debilitated by climate change, income inequality, and corporate greed. This is observed through a journal kept by an African American teenager. “Tonight the last big Window Wall television in the neighborhood went dark for good. We saw the dead astronaut with all of red, rocky Mars around her. We saw a dust-dry reservoir and three dead water peddlers with their dirty-blue armbands and their heads cut halfway off. …Then the Window went dark.”

Kathleen Brady, 2022

An American woman travels to Beijing in the late 1980s to study Chinese in hopes of becoming a translator. She’s fascinated with soaking in a different culture and grows captivated by another woman teacher at the Language Institute. She thinks she only needs to overcome her fear to surrender to their powerful love but doesn’t reckon on the power of the State to tear them apart. “‘…I will go with you to pick a good bicycle if you want,’ she said, flicking her left braid over her shoulder, offering a shy half-smile. I was realizing that she had just flirted with me when the cicadas started up again. I had to lean in a little closer to hear her.”

Bia Lowe, 1995

Through juxtaposing stories of LGBTQ+ experience with meditations on the natural world, Bia Lowe asserts that nothing could be more natural than bodies together in love and exploration. Lowe’s background as a poet is apparent here in her rhythmic diction and weaving of images that deliver more meaning than the sum of their parts. “I am drawn to flowers not only to get a better look at them but finally to be coaxed inside them.”