martattack reviewed Lesbian Love Story by Amelia Possanza
Review of 'Lesbian Love Story' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
So one would think it's all in the title, but! It's all in the subtitle: "A memoir in archives".
This book has given me SO much food for thought. An intellectual cornucopia, if you will. So much to think about and process and ruminate and consider.
This book explores lives of some "lesbians" in history, some of them who even lived before the word lesbian existed. Even before the concept was given a name (hence the quotation marks before), when it was a sexual orientation and also a gender performance, a time when the lines between these two were blurred. Lesbianhood (?) as we know it (an identity and/or a political stance) is so so recent, and partially because of the archival silence around women, even more so dissident women. In this book there's an incredibly interesting dive into the little archives that do exist, unveiling specific queer stories, telling …
So one would think it's all in the title, but! It's all in the subtitle: "A memoir in archives".
This book has given me SO much food for thought. An intellectual cornucopia, if you will. So much to think about and process and ruminate and consider.
This book explores lives of some "lesbians" in history, some of them who even lived before the word lesbian existed. Even before the concept was given a name (hence the quotation marks before), when it was a sexual orientation and also a gender performance, a time when the lines between these two were blurred. Lesbianhood (?) as we know it (an identity and/or a political stance) is so so recent, and partially because of the archival silence around women, even more so dissident women. In this book there's an incredibly interesting dive into the little archives that do exist, unveiling specific queer stories, telling us more about the zeitgeist, and providing an abundance of musings on gender expression, queerness, friendship, love - all the good stuff!
This goes straight into my Lesbian Lore List (@Audrey get on it!), a must read for anyone identifying as a lesbian or as queer. Folks, we must know our past to define our collective future!