Tagged with fiction

This is a book club book, so I don’t want to say much about it before I get the chance to talk about it with Celia. And that’s fine, because I don’t have a ton to say about it. A young goth punk alcoholic in recovery, whose father died a few years prior discovers Debbie Harry, falls in love, and realizes he’s a transvestite. It’s an area that’s not covered adequately in the literature, but I’m not sure it’s covered adequately here, either.

Why must Olivia be a teenager in love with her finishing school headmistress? First published in 1949, it was a hot item. Per The Christian Science Monitor, libraries couldn't get it onto the shelves. Comparing Olivia and 1984, also recently published, Eric Forbes-Boyd writes in the CSM on July 21, 1949:

And Then They Were Nuns is different from other lesbian separatist utopia novels because the utopia is a monastery, and the lesbians are nuns--except for the one who serves as the priest. I'm sorry; it's hard not to tease such a set-up. And Then They Were Nuns actually is more or less like other lesbian separatist utopia novels, not that that's a bad thing.

Marlys and Maybonne's little brother gets in trouble a lot, and like his sisters has a rotten home life. Who's better than Lynda Barry at depicting the misery and shame of childhood, but with enough love for her characters that you don't totally want to kill yourself while reading about them?