When I heard that the I Heart Sapph Fiction website was featuring books that spoke to the topic of addiction and that my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage (Thorned Heart Press; 2022) was being published, I decided to post an excerpt. This is from the ending of the novel which tells the story of Art, short for Artemis, who was a drug dealer in high school, got caught, went to reform school, and then a few years later deals again, is caught, and sentenced to prison. After a few years, she gets released and eventually marries the love of her life, Linda, and goes on to lead her lesbian life. I have always believed in second chances, and this is Art’s story.
I am reading the excerpt from Loving Artemis below on Youtube and have pasted the words on my blog below.
***
In the end, it was Linda who saved her. She started coming to visit when Art was in the County Jail. Art still remembered their first visit with the glass window between them when Linda was fighting back tears. Linda said that she left Tommy after he told her he and Cal set Art up the first time she had been busted. “They had the whole thing planned,” Linda had said. “Tommy polished off two six packs the night that he told me this, and he acted like he thought it was funny. Then he demanded to know if you and I were ever lovers. I told him we were, and that I was still in love with you. He said he suspected as much because things were never right between us. I packed up our things and took Clio with me back to my mother’s house that night.” Then Linda held her hand up against the dirty glass window between them and said she was sorry for leaving her, that she had been young and stupid and just doing what she thought she should be doing. Linda named her daughter Clio after one of the Muses. She told Art she chose the name from Greek mythology so that she would think of Art whenever she said her daughter’s name. After Linda came to visit, Art signed up for auto mechanic classes in the prison. Linda came every week, and when Art pressed her hand against the glass opposite Linda’s, she remembered being a teenager and wishing on the evening star to marry Linda and spend her life with her.
***
This is Janet Mason reading from my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage published by Thorned Heart Press.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here.
To read another excerpt from Loving Artemis, click here.
I wrote this novel to tell some of the untold stories from my youth. I grew up in a rough-and-tumble working-class tract house area, so there were quite a few stories there. I worked on the novel for a long time, and the story evolved to the theme of marriage equality and the historical events that happened in the backdrop of the teenage girls came together with the future passage of marriage equality. In that way the story is autobiographical, and the history is accurate. So, the timing happened to coincide with the legalization of marriage equality nationwide.
Who is your favorite character in the book?
My favorite character is the lead character Artemis. The events in Artemis’s life (including her brother and her love for motorcycles as well as her girlfriend Linda) turn her into a drug dealer and she gets caught goes to jail, gets released several years later, reunites with the love of her life, Linda, and in another couple of decades marries her legally (this was something she wished for when she was an adolescent). She gets caught and goes to jail which is different from my experience and from the other narrator, Grace, who is more academically oriented and is more like me.
What inspired the idea for Loving Artemis?
The inspiration came from my youth and my need to tell the stories.
What was the biggest challenge writing this book?
My biggest challenge in writing this came naturally–that was lesbianizing my youth. As I was telling a friend, I probably gave the girls (who were based on actual persons) that I probably gave my characters happier endings than they actually had! If you add the march of history, there are three happy endings at the close of Loving Artemis.
What part of Loving Artemis was the most fun to write?
The details of place from my youth were identical, including the motorcycle shop and the gold dome of the Greek Orthodox church in the writing — giving the work a strong sense of place.
How did you come up with the title for your book?
The book’s original title was Art which was short for Artemis. When I found a publisher, she wanted to title the book Loving Artemis. We had just buried a friend’s cat, named Artemis, in our backyard and I thought Artemis had brought me luck in finding the publisher, so the name change was fine with me.
How much research did you need to do for Loving Artemis?
I did a fair amount of research on the historic events–Shirley Chisholm running for President in 1972 being one of the events–that happened when the girls were teens. Some of the events were mentioned in a paper that Grace (one of the narrators) writes for her high school English class.
What is your favorite line from your book?
“Art fell into the universe that she and Linda made together.”
What is your writing process like?
The novel welled up in me and I wrote it. Basically, I had to. I let my characters tell me what they wanted to do.
Where do you usually write, and what do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused?
I write on my computer. As I recall, I wrote much of this novel on my laptop, when I was holed up in my bedroom and at the kitchen table in my yoga teacher’s house. When I’m working on something, I tend to be thinking about it most of the time. I wrote and rewrote this book for about seven years.
If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?
I think I would pick Sappho or Emily Dickinson.
What’s your favorite writing snack or drink?
I love coffee–now with oat milk. Green tea works just as well. I think it’s the caffeine.
How do you celebrate when you finish your book?
I go for a walk and am extra happy!
Do you have a pet who helps/hinders your typing?
I usually have a cat. While I was working on this, I had a cat named Princess Sappho who used to sit on my lap. When she died and then her brother died, it was very sad but then our new cat, Peanut, came to us when she was about a year old, and we are head over heels about her. She’s usually in the window in my home office. I always imagine that I write better with a cat.
What animal or object best represents you as an author or your writing style?
I love Rilke’s Panther pacing around in his cage. I guess my head is the cage and the novel ideas are the panther.
What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing, and by whom?
“Write the HARD STORIES.” — Dorothy Allison. I found when I took this advice, I wrote the stories that made a difference. Probably, that’s what has kept me writing.
What has helped or hindered you most when writing a book?
I try to block out all outside negative voices. (Why bother writing? It’s so hard to find a publisher, etc) If writers listened to them, we wouldn’t have any books.
When you’re writing an emotional or difficult scene, how do you set the mood?
Sometimes I listen to music from the period that I am writing about.
What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?
I just start writing and then I’m there.
If you could be mentored by a famous author (living or not), who would it be?
Sappho. I love the idea of walking with her on the cliffs of Lesbos. (And I have been there and listened for her in the wind.)
What author in your genre do you most admire, and why?
I think I keep coming back to Sappho because she is known for putting herself in the poem, like Whitman. Also, I started out in my writing life as a poet and I think the rhythm of the language even when it’s in prose is what moves me.
Have you ever cried when writing an emotional scene?
I cry all the time when writing. In particular, I cried toward the end of Loving Artemis when Art is in prison and puts her hand against the glass mirroring Linda’s hand, pressed to the other side of the glass. Then at the end, when Art is in the New York Pride parade riding on her motorcycle and she meets up with Linda who is carrying a “just married” sign, I cried again!
Do you feel bad putting your characters through the wringer?
I did kill off Art’s brother because it fit the storyline and maybe because he was such a bad influence on her, I didn’t feel bad at all. I also didn’t get a thrill from it consciously at least. I just kept writing.
Have you ever hated one of your characters?
I’ve heard it said that a writer must love all her characters. I would say this is true, at least for the main characters.
Have you ever fallen in love with one of your characters?
Not consciously. But considering the amount of time a writer has to spend with her characters, maybe I have been in love with all of the main characters and just didn’t think about it.
What type of books do you enjoy reading the most?
I review books and tend to be most interested in LGBTQ books.
Are there any books or authors that inspired you to become a writer?
I’m coming back to Sappho again. She had the courage to be herself. That’s what writing does for me.
What books did you grow up reading?
I read, read, read. I read all of the books in the elementary school library. And the teachers were concerned about me. Seriously.
What books have you read more than once in your life?
I love mythology and reread things like Ovid and Homer. Also, Dante. I think I come back because I want to revisit where the story lives in my imagination.
What book do you wish you had written?
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book and wished I’d written it. I think I do the opposite. I write the books that need to be written.
Describe your favorite reading spot.
Often, I read in the car, while my partner goes shopping.
Do you only read books in one genre or do you genre hop?
I tend to find a story that grabs me, and don’t pay attention to the genre.
Have you ever thought you’d hate a book, but ended up loving it?
I don’t review books that I don’t like. And in the many years, I’ve been reviewing, there have only been a handful of books I couldn’t finish. Actually, come to think of it, when drugs and alcohol are obviously addictions and are portrayed favorably, it turns me off.
In honor of International Women’s Day, I thought I’d tell you about an interesting reading happening this week in Philadelphia.
Suzette Mullen had been raised to play it safe—and she hated causing others pain. With college and law degrees, a kind and successful husband, two thriving adult sons, and an ocean-view vacation home, she lived a life many people would envy. But beneath the happy facade was a woman who watched her friends walk boldly through their lives and wondered what was holding her back from doing the same.
Digging into her past, Suzette uncovered a deeply buried truth: she’d been in love with her best friend—a woman—for nearly two decades—and still was.
Leaning into these “unspeakable” feelings would put Suzette’s identity, relationships, and life of privilege at risk—but taking this leap might be her only chance to feel fully alive. As Suzette opened herself up to new possibilities, an unexpected visit to a new city helped her discover who she was meant to be.
Introspective, bittersweet, and empowering, The Only Way Through Is Out (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024) is both a coming-out and coming-of-age story, as well as a call to action for every human who is longing to live authentically but is afraid of the cost.
When asked who she wrote The Only Way Through Is Out for, Suzette replied:” I wrote my story for every human who is longing to live out loud—including LGBTQ+ folx crushed by oppressive religious institutions; women at midlife who have deferred their own dreams; empty nesters who have stayed in unhappy marriages “for the kids”—every person who longs to live more authentically but is afraid of the cost.”
“I could not put this book down. Mullen shows us the search for one’s authentic self has no expiration date and is worth whatever it takes. This book is a glorious tale of tenacious courage that anyone searching for their own path in life will love.”
—Jennifer Louden, national bestselling author of Why Bother? Discover the Desire for What’s Next
“Candid, inspirational … An emotive memoir that issues a stirring call to women to choose self-actualization.”
In honor of Valentines (Vagina) Day, I decided to repost this section from my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage (published in 2022 by Thorned Heart Press) that was published in the anthology Favorite Scenes From Favorite Authors, from I Heart Sapphic Books. I am particularly enthusiastic about this excerpt because it was inspired by the Lesbian poet Sappho. The excerpt is called “The trees blushing”
“Blurb:
Artemis found the love of her life when she met Linda, but their passionate relationship fizzles when Artemis lands herself on the other side of the law. Pulling the pieces of her life together, Artemis rekindles her relationship with Linda, and together they raise a daughter.
Meanwhile, Grace, running from her past, starts a life with Thalia. At a pride parade, Grace spots someone who reminds her of Artemis, who she was briefly involved with in her youth. Old feelings are rekindled. A lifetime of rejection, abandonment, and fleeing rears its head. Now she must come to terms with her past, put her relationship with Artemis to rest–or risk losing everything.
Artemis and Grace embark on a journey of revolution, love, and marriage and discover that love finds us when we least expect it.
Tell us about this scene:
Art (Artemis) and the love of her life Linda take a motorcycle ride to the nearby quarry where they make love for the first time.
Why did you choose this scene as your favorite?
This scene is heavily influenced by my reading of the ancient Greek poet Sappho (who lived on the Island of Lesvos).
* * *
Excerpt:
(from chapter ten)
They got back on the bike. Art turned the key in the ignition and pulled forward slowly. This was where Art had come with her old girlfriend Allison. They had been on foot then, that first time when they hid behind the trees and called out to each other with lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Art remembered the light shining through the trees, the way it did now as it danced on the ground around them. It was summer then. Now, red, orange, and brown leaves covered the path. Art felt the bump of tree roots under the tires. She brought the bike to a halt. She sat there for a minute, feeling the warmth of Linda behind her: the inside of Linda’s thighs cupping her ass; Linda’s arms hugging her waist. Art had been thinking that it didn’t get better than this. But now she knew it did — and it would. The difference between the time that she first came here with Allison and now, coming here with Linda, was that Art had been here before. She knew what she was doing. But she wanted it to be Linda’s idea. Linda got off the bike first. She walked to a log next to the path and sat down.
“I can see the lake from here,” said Linda. The back of her head was toward Art. Her windswept hair fell over her jacket collar.
“Come on over.” Art swung her leg over the bike. She put down the kickstand and stood there for a moment, holding the handlebars until she made sure that the bike was on steady ground. Then she walked the bike to the side of the path — beyond the log where Linda was sitting.
A narrow trail shot off from the path. It looked familiar. Art walked over to the log. “You can see the lake from here,” Art said. “I never realized that before.”
Linda scooted closer to Art. “You know the first time I walked into school with you, the girl sitting next to me in homeroom asked, ‘Who’s that cute guy with the motorcycle?’”
Art looked at her.
“Art is a guy’s name,” Linda explained.
“It’s short for Artemis,” answered Art. “My mother’s Greek. Artemis is a goddess from Greek mythology.”
“Yeah, the goddess of the hunt. She was always my favorite,” replied Linda, looking at Art perceptively. “I think it’s cool that you’re Greek.”
Art looked into Linda’s green eyes. The woods were shady. Afternoon light filtered through red and orange leaves. Linda’s eyes blazed into Art’s.
“You would make a cute guy,” Linda continued.
Art was drawn into the green vortex of Linda’s eyes. Art’s arms and legs trembled and tiny flames scorched her skin. She opened her mouth slightly to say something, but speech eluded her. Linda leaned in and kissed her. Art kissed her back. Linda’s lips felt as soft as moist rose petals and she smelled like musk oil. Art didn’t know if Linda wore perfume or if the scent came from her own body. A breeze rustled the leaves. Art’s heart trembled. This wasn’t the first time she kissed a girl, but this kiss felt different. A universe opened between them. Their tongues found new language. Soon, Art drew back. Linda looked radiant, as if the moon and stars were glowing inside of her. Still speechless, Art remembered that there was something she wanted to say.
Words formed on her lips: “But I’m not a boy. I’m a girl.”
“A smart girl,” whispered Linda. “I like that.”
This time, Art leaned in and kissed Linda. Their hands were everywhere. They came up for air, stood, and stumbled ahead on the path. They turned down a narrow path and found a large mossy patch that looked inviting. Art thought she had been here before with Allison, but she wasn’t sure if this was the exact place. Now, here with Linda, it was new. They were standing, kneeling, lying on the ground, rolling, touching. It was too cool a day to take off their clothes, but, as it turned out, it didn’t matter. There would be plenty of time for that later.
Art rolled on top of Linda. Excitement sparked in her groin and danced throughout her body. Her fingers tingled. Her tongue entwined with Linda’s. When they were done kissing, Art drew back and looked at Linda. Her hair was the deep red of autumn apples. Her skin was radiant. Shifting her weight, Art thrust her thigh against Linda’s crotch.
Linda groaned. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I got on your bike with you,” she whispered.
Art had wanted to do this ever since she set eyes on Linda. She wanted the bike more than anything, but she wanted Linda just as much. Maybe Linda was the reason she bought the bike. Yiayia (her Greek grandmother)would have understood. The wind blew harder and the leaves rustled. A distant roaring filled Art’s ears. Linda moaned and writhed under Art, as Art rubbed her crotch in a circular motion on Linda’s thigh. Cries overflowed from her throat. A humming filled her ears. The moss felt like moist velvet under her fingertips. It was chilly, but Art was filled with warmth. She rolled to the side.
As she lay there, her arms circling Linda, she imagined that the red and orange leaves looking down at them were the trees blushing.
Here is the link to the free anthology on BookFunnel:
It’s my pleasure to post a review of The Highest Apple – Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition by Judy Grahn (in 2024) re-published by Sinister Wisdom as part of its Sapphic Classic line. The video of the review is above (on YouTube ) and the text of the review is below.
When I heard that Sinister Wisdom was republishing The Highest Apple – Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition by Judy Grahn (in 2024) as part of its Sapphic Classic line, I was very excited. This important book was first published in 1985 by Spinster’s Ink Press.
I tend to think of the 1980s, when I came out in my early twenties, as “the old days” which were quite heady with lesbian culture. I was very influenced by Sappho, Grahn, and the other poets she writes about so eloquently in The Highest Apple, including the poets H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Amy Lowell, Emily Dickenson, and Gertrude Stein as well as the contemporary poets Adrienne Rich, Paula Gun Allen, Audre Lorde, Pat Parker, and Olga Broumas.
I was excited because those days (while far from perfect) greatly influenced me, and I heard all the contemporary poets in this book read from their work in person. I’m not one to be nostalgic, but rereading the lines from Greek-American poet Olga Broumas (from her first book, Beginning With O) :
City-center, mid-
traffic, I
wake to your public kiss, Your name
is Judith, your kiss a sign
to the shocked pedestrians, gathered
beneath the light that means
stop
…
I was filled with memories from “the old days” which included listening to Broumas read her work and talk about her process which involved the Greek tradition of letting the poem well up inside of you, reciting it until it was whole, and then writing it down in its entirety.
So, there was much about The Highest Apple reminiscent of how important this work was, and the importance of the influence of the groundbreaking lesbian poets who were writing and publishing at this time. But this book also spoke to me in the present moment, and Grahn seemed at times to be saying the exact thing that I needed to hear as I read it.
As I have moved on in life, I have become more intersectional, and in recent years I have become vegan. This is something my partner and I have done initially for health reasons (the results turned out to be remarkable), but also in time both of us went through a consciousness-raising about the animals and the planet, making me think more about the universe and my place in it. While rereading the book, what seemed like my mysterious flash of insight about becoming vegan was suddenly illuminated. To become vegan, I had to fully love myself, to embrace all of myself – including my essential lesbian self – and my understanding that came from living under the patriarchy for all these years, led me to where I am now. This was a valuable realization because I am always longing to be whole (in past and present) which is something that Grahn speaks to in this book.
So, I was delighted when I read Grahn’s following paragraph that spoke to me in showing me that The Highest Apple reflects not only my past but also my present and future:
“Lesbian poetry leads itself to its own foundations, and to this idea: the universe is alive, is a place, and we can unite with it; in fact it is essential that we do so. We can build a place for ourselves in it, so long as we understand the stones to be each other; we can reach our long-held apple, the one Sappho held back on the highest branch for us. This is a profoundly feminist and a profoundly poetic and a profoundly Lesbian idea.”
The irony of this important lesbian book being out of print for so long was not lost on me. Important life-changing literature does not have to be burned (as was the case of the classical Greek and Lesbian poet Sappho), but only to be ignored.
Rereading The Highest Apple – Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition by Judy Grahn republished by Sinister Wisdomin 2024 reminded me how lesbian literature can remind us that we are whole in the past, present, and future.This is Janet Mason with commentary for BookTube and Spotify.
To find out more about the rereleased version of The Highest Apple on the Sinister Wisdom website, click here: The Highest Apple | Sinister Wisdom
To read an excerpt of my novel Loving Artemis, published by Thorned Heart Press in 2022,inspired by Sappho, click here:
I thought I’d repost a part of the review I did of Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, published by St. Martin’s Press in the year 2,000 – fifteen years before same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in the United States. The review is recorded below and the text is below that.
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas: Love Notes
Edited by Kay Turner and published by the Stonewall imprint of St. Martin’s Press, Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, published in the year 2,000 brings together for the first time a collection of private notes passed between Gertrude and Alice, the two women who had the distinction of being the most famous lesbian couple of the twentieth century.
Reading the book from cover to cover gave me the sense of looking through a keyhole into the everyday intimacies that made up the marriage of Gertrude and Alice. Gertrude was the husband, the hubby, and Alice was her wifie, her wife, her precious baby. Their partnership lasted for 39 years, from 1907 until Gertrude’s death in 1946.
In Gertrude Stein’s words, “It happened very simply that they were married. They were naturally married.”
Gertrude Stein, sometimes referred to as ‘The Mother of Modernism,’ has often been misunderstood. Her writing, with its use of repetition and unusual word patterns, is not nonsense as some would have us believe or the result of a psychological condition. Stein used language itself to break apart the conventions of literature and thought. In other words, instead of portraying reality, the words are their own reality.
Sometimes the notes were about domestic activities. Gertrude had oiled Alice’s scissors or had chopped the wood. More often the notes conveyed endearances and reassurances. Pet names abounded. Gertrude signed most of her notes “Y.D.,’ short for “Your Darling.” Gertrude’s nicknames for Alice included “birdie,” “sweetie,” her “boss,” and her “treasure.” In turn, Alice called Gertrude her “husband,” her “lovie,” “baby boy,” “Mr. Cuddlewuddle,” and “sweet pinky.”
Most of the notes included in this collection were written by Gertrude. But the small number written by Alice are very telling. Alice offers much insight into Gertrude’s work, telling her mate that she is “without peer.” She offers encouragement, inspiration, and lays down the rules of their relationship in no uncertain terms. In one note, the lines spaced out like a poem, Alice wrote: “Baby boy / You’re no toy / But a strong-strong husband / I don’t obey”
This collection can be read as literature in itself and also as insight into Gertrude Stein’s great body of work. Ultimately, as the editors note in the introduction, these notes “disclose the intimacies of a deeply committed, very rare, and at the same time, very ordinary marriage.”
Rereading Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, published by St. Martin’s Press in the year 2,000 – fifteen years before same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in the United States – reminds me that we have always existed.
This is Janet Mason with commentary for Book Tube and Spotify.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
I am posting a review of Wilde Nights & Robber Barons, The Story of Maurice Schwabe (The Man Behind Oscar Wilde’s Downfall, who with a Band of False Aristocrats Swindled the World) written by Laura Lee (2022; Elsewhere Press).
The review that I recorded for Book Tube is below and the written review is below that.
Oscar Wilde was not the first one. Of course, I knew that rationally. But this was also the first thought that popped into my head after finishing the book Wilde Nights & Robber Barons, The Story of Maurice Schwabe (The Man Behind Oscar Wilde’s Downfall, who with a Band of False Aristocrats Swindled the World) by Laura Lee (2022; Elsewhere Press).
No stranger to the world of Oscar Wilde, Lee is the author of the 2017 nonfiction book titled Oscar’s Ghost, The Battle for Oscar Wilde’s Legacy from Amberly Publishing in England.
Her new book interested me because it tells the story behind the story of how Oscar Wilde became the gay icon that he is – including the impetus and name of the infamous and historically important Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York City which closed its doors in 2009.
Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland; went to college in England; married a woman as custom dictated; became a well-known writer; discovered he was gay, fell hopelessly in love with a younger man named Lord Alfred Douglas; and went to jail for that love in 1895. He was then released from jail in 1897 and in 1900 died penniless.
Wilde is the author of numerous and often satirical writings including his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his plays including his most popular, The Importance of Being Earnest.
In Wilde Nights & Robber Barons, Lee used her research and writing to bring to light the story behind Oscar Wilde. He came to be known because of his writings, and he came to ruin because he was being blackmailed for his homosexuality along with other gay men in a certain class in what was commonly called “polite society.”
Maurice Schwabe, key to the international circle of card sharks and blackmailers, just happened to have been lovers with Lord Alfred Douglas, the man who was known for his long-term love affair with Oscar Wilde. Douglas, also known as Bosie, was with Schwabe before he was with Oscar Wilde, making me think that jealousy and revenge were likely motives in the blackmailing along with financial gain.
In doing her research and presenting the facts, Lee gives the reader some interesting insight into Wilde’s important role in the early gay rights movement: “Oscar was starting to be known as someone a young man in a certain kind of trouble could call on for help. In September 1893, Bosie had written to Charles Kains-Jackson, the editor of The Artist and the Journal of Home Culture, which was a showcase for homoerotic verse. He talked about Oscar’s role in advancing the “new culture,” a society that was accepting of same-sex love, an early form of the gay rights movement. ‘Perhaps nobody knows as I do what [Oscar] has done for the ‘new culture,’ the people he has pulled out of the fire and ‘seen through’ things not only with money, but by sticking to them when other people wouldn’t speak to them…’ In the years leading up to his trial for gross indecency, Wilde spent a fair amount of time negotiating with blackmailers, and only a small portion of this involved letters of his own.”
In reading Wilde Nights & Robber Barons, The Story of Maurice Schwabe (The Man Behind Oscar Wilde’s Downfall, who with a Band of False Aristocrats Swindled the World) by Laura Lee (2022; Elsewhere Press), I learned more about Oscar Wilde than I knew before.
This is Janet Mason reviewing for Book Tube.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Since the Biblical season is on us and everybody is holy, I am re-posting a published excerpt of my novel, THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders published by Adelaide Books (New York/ Lisbon). (For more information about the book — click here.)
This piece was first published in aadunaand was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
The Mother
(sometime early in the first century)
In the beginning was the Mother.
In the womb, Tamar took mental notes. The heavens trembled — at least it felt like the heavens. Maybe it was just gas. The Mother shifted. At first, it was too dark to see. But Tamar could feel. At first it felt like chaos — like everything was unconnected. But then she felt something holding her. A curved wall. She was leaning into it. It was soft and warm. She felt her backbone curve behind her. She was half of a circle. Was she floating? There was a chord attached to her belly. She relaxed once she realized that she wouldn’t float away.
There were appendages coming out from her shoulders. She looked down below the chord. On the lower part of her body there was a small bump and on either side of that were two more appendages. There was liquid all around her. She felt warm and safe. She didn’t have to worry yet about breathing.
Whoosh. She flinched. Slosh. Gurgles whizzed by. There was an abbreviated bubbling. After it repeated three times, she identified the sound as a hiccup. After a few moments, there was silence. Then there was a contented hum coming from the distance. Tamar knew it was the Mother, and it calmed her.
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The darkness lifted. She saw a distant light glowing through the pink barrier. She looked down and noticed tiny extremities with red lines moving through them. They were attached to the ends of two appendages, on each side of her. She found that she could move them, as if she were trying to grasp something. She knew that these movements would come in handy later. The light went out. Darkness. Tamar felt herself in her body.
She was perfect.
When she woke again, she blinked for the first time. It felt good so she did it again. The pinkish yellow glow came back. She clenched and unclenched her fingers. She rubbed the short one across the tips of several of the others, and felt a roughness. She felt a nourishment rushing from the chord through her body. And it was good. She went back to sleep for a long while.
When she woke, she stretched and yawned. She saw a pinkish yellow glow. It was faint and came from the other side. She looked toward the light and saw the sack next to her. There was someone inside who looked like her. It even had a light glowing around its edges — just like she did — down its extremities and around its fingers and toes. She remembered now that she had entered one body of two. Her twin was beside her. There was a large, round dome attached to a small body like hers. The big round dome faced her. The eyes looked at her. One blinked and the other stayed open. The two corners of the lips went up. Somehow she knew that this was a smile. Her twin was welcoming her. She wanted to welcome him back, but something stopped her. She didn’t know who her twin was. Was her twin part of her? She wasn’t sure she wanted to be part of someone else. She definitely didn’t want to share her Mother.
There were appendages on both sides of his body. There were five fingers attached to the end of each appendage. The fingers clenched and unclenched. They seemed to wave at her. Tamar thought about waving back, but she didn’t. She wasn’t sure if the thing next to her in the translucent sack could see her. So she pretended that she didn’t see it. Then she looked down and saw something protruding. At first she thought that she was seeing a shadow. She moved her head slightly. The shadow was still there. She looked down at her own body and saw that she also had a third appendage on the lower part of her body. It was much shorter than the two other limbs. She clenched and unclenched her fingers. They were all there — five on each side, including the shorter ones at the ends. None of them had fallen off. She looked down again. Somehow she knew that this protrusion made her a boy and knowing this made her angry.
She knew her name was Tamar, but she had forgotten where it came from. She knew that Tamar was a girl’s name, and that she was a girl. She had a vague memory in her cells that she had come from a single egg, fertilized by a trail of light that had come just for her. And she remembered that another egg, fertilized with its own stream of light, was next to her and that the two eggs had merged. They crossed over and into each other, exchanging some vital information. Tamar’s egg knew that it was female. But it absorbed a sequence of information that told it that its genetic material that it would be male and female. The secret language of the cells said that each of the eggs would be XX and XY.
The thing next to her had a longer protrusion than her. She took comfort in that. Perhaps this meant that she was really a girl after all. But the thing next to her — gradually, she came to think of him as her twin — would most likely be lording his superiority over her forever.
On the sides of the protrusion were two lower appendages. She found that she could use her mind to stretch them. And once she stretched them, she realized that these were her legs and that her feet were attached to the ends of them. She kicked at the inside of the pink cushion that surrounded her.
“Ow,” said a woman’s voice. It was the voice of the Mother. Tamar knew that she had to get the Mother’s attention first. She kicked again.
This time she felt a gentle hand push down on the other side of the pink cushion. Her twin nudged the Mother back.
“What are you trying to tell me, my son?” asked Mother.
I’m a girl — a girl just like you Mother, Tamar tried to say. But speech eluded her. She had yet to utter her first cry. But she had to get Mothers attention —
Note: I am re-blogging this in honor of World Awareness Day which was on December 1st.
Every now and then comes that rare book that brings your life rushing back to you. How To Survive A Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France (Knopf 2016) is one such book.
The book chronicles the AIDS epidemic from the early 1980s – when the mysterious “gay cancer” started appearing — to 1995 when hard-won advancements in research and pharmaceuticals made AIDS a virus that people lived with rather than a disease that people died from.
It was an epidemic of massive proportions. As France writes:
“When the calendar turned to 1991, 100,000 Americans were dead from AIDS, twice as many as had perished in Vietnam.”
The book chronicles the scientific developments, the entwined politics, and medical breakthroughs in the AIDS epidemic. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is a chronic infectious condition that is caused by the underlying human immunodeficiency virus known as HIV. The book also chronicles the human toll which is staggering.I came out in 1981 and while the devastation France writes about was not my world, it was very close to my experience.
In my book Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters (Bella Books, 2012), I write about how volunteering at an AIDS hospice helped me to care for my mother when she became terminally ill:
“The only caregiving I had done at that point was tending to an old cat and reading poetry to the patients at an AIDS hospice, called Betak, that was in our neighborhood. A friend of ours, who was a harpist, had started a volunteer arts program for the patients. She played the harp, [my partner] Barbara came and brought her drum sometimes, and I read poetry. These were poor people—mostly African American men—who were in the advanced stages of AIDS and close to death. The experience let me see how fast the disease could move.”
In those days, the women’s community (what we then called the lesbian and feminist community) was mostly separate from the gay male community. Understandably, gay men and lesbians had our differences. But there was infighting in every group. Rebellion was in the air, and sometimes we took our hostilities out on each other.
Still, gay men and lesbians were also allies and friends (something that is reflected in France’s writing).
I’ll always remember the time my partner and I took a bus to Washington D.C. with the guys from ACT-UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, an international activist group that is still in existence) from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. to protest for reproductive rights. The women then went to protest with ACT-UP at AIDS-related protests. Remember the die-ins in the streets?
One thing that lesbians and gay men had in common was that we lived in a world that was hostile to us. At that time, many gay men and lesbians were in the closet because we were vilified by society and in danger of losing our employment, families, housing and, in more than a few instances, our lives.
AIDS activism necessitated coming out of the closet. Hate crimes against us skyrocketed.
There is much in this book that I did not know, even though I lived through the era. In 1986, in protest of the Bowers v. Hardwick ruling of the US Supreme Court (which upheld a Georgia law criminalizing sodomy – a decision that was overturned in 2003), about 1,000 angry people protested in a small park across from the legendary Stonewall Inn in New York City, where the modern gay rights movement was born after a series of riots that started after a routine police raid of the bar.
At that same time, Ronald Reagan (then president) and the President of France François Mitterrand were celebrating the anniversary of the gift of the Statue of Liberty.
“’Did you hear that Lady Liberty has AIDS?” the comedian [Bob Hope] cracked to the three hundred guests. “Nobody knows if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Ferry.’”
“There was a scattering of groans. Mitterand and his wife looked appalled. But not the Reagans. The first lady, a year after the death of her friend Rock Hudson, the brunt of this joke, smiled affectionately. The president threw his head back and roared.”
How to Survive A Plague is told in stories, including the author’s own story. This is apt because the gay rights movement was full of stories and — because of the epidemic — most of those stories were cut short.
Almost every June, my partner and I would be part of the New York Pride Parade and every year we would pause for an official moment to honor our dead. The silence was cavernous.
This silence extended to entire communities. A gay male friend, amazed when his test came back negative, told me that most of his address book was crossed out. He would walk around the “gayborhood” in Center City Philadelphia surrounded by the haunting places where his friends used to live.
And we were all so young then.
When I turned the last page of How To Survive A Plague, I concluded that this is a very well-done book about a history that is important in its own right. The plague years also represent an important part of the American experience. And an understanding of this history is imperative to the future of the LGBT movement.
This piece of commentary was previously aired on This Way Out, the LGBTQ news and culture syndicate headquartered in Los Angeles and published in The Huffington Post.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Janet Mason, author 