Forty-Three
Septembers : Essays by
Jewelle Gomez
These essays recall Gomez's 43 years as a black
woman, writer, and lesbian-feminist and acclaim the integration of
identities in a shifting world that often prefers the simplistic
to the complex and authentic. "For me in my forties,"
Gomez writes," with no children, no property, no savings,
embracing the nontraditional roles of lesbian, African-American
writer, and the enigmatic gaze of my mother, I am frightened of
middle age. If I reject the traditional perception of who I am,
who I was supposed to be, with what do I replace it? . . . My mind
says there's really no limit. I write, I work as an activist. . .
. But to identify myself as only what I do is a mistake that men
have made too often throughout history. So what do I make of
myself?" She remembers her Catholicism and the power of its
passion and ritual; the word bulldagger spoken acceptingly
by her grandmother, thus giving the teenage girl a term for her
identity; and the trials and exhilaration of learning to swim.
These compelling meditations about identity, forebears, aging, and
the costliness of silence constitute a story of faith. Whitney
Scott, From Booklist
The
Gilda Stories : A Novel by
Jewelle Gomez
The Gilda Stories is an
elegant, sensual, and natural vampire fantasy. Time-traveling from
Southern slavery in 1850 to environmental devastation 200 years
later, Gilda is the quintessential outsider seeking community.
Jewelle Gomez combines a natural flair for storyteller with an
ability to weave tapestries of personality that grab the mind's
imagination and won't let go. A memorable story, deftly told.
-- Midwest Book Review
"This remarkable novel is about a runaway
slave girl in the 1850s who is befriended by 2 enigmatic women who
run a brothel. The two women help the girl and make her like
themselves, as vampires. The girl takes the name Gilda (from one
of the two) and spends the next 200 years searching for a place to
call home, for love, and for greater meaning in the world. Gomez
has created an amazing tale that is utterly intriguing. I wanted
to love it more, but sometimes the story almost worked against
itself by moving too quickly from time period to time period
without giving us (and Gilda) a chance to really connect. I
heartily recommend this book because of the many thought-provoking
points Gomez introduces. It's quite a tasty story." --
Anonymous Review
Best
Lesbian Erotica 1997 (Annual) by
Jewelle Gomez (Editor), Tristan Taormino (Editor)
As irreverent and sexy as last year's edition,
Best Lesbian Erotica 1997 promises stories that may even outshine
works by that list of contenders, which included such luminaries
as DOrothy Allison, Pat Califia, Kate Bornstein, Lucy Jane Bledsoe
and lots of hot, new voices.
Several years ago
finding lesbian erotica was as difficult as locating a liberal at
the National Republican Convention. It may have been there, but it
stayed out of sight. This has been rectified with the publication
of several anthologies of lesbian erotic writing, the most
prominent of which has been Best
Lesbian Erotica, edited by Tristan Taormino. This second
volume, featuring stories selected by Jewelle Gomez, is a fine
collection that includes the romantic and the perverse, the
sublime and the athletic. Writers such as Chrystos, Jenifer Levin,
Heather Lewis, and Kitty Tusi have produced stories that will
evoke a number of responses.
