Forty Years On with Dykewomon and Jacobs

Patty Hearst makes
a withdrawl

The year was 1974, and the world was a wild and wonderful place.

Earth’s population hit 4 billion people, and Patty Hearst used an M-1 Carbine to make an unauthorized withdrawal from the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco. News anchor, Christine Chubbock demonstrated, all too effectively, how to commit suicide in a live broadcast. The last Japanese World War II soldier surrendered on the Indonesian island of Morota, 34 years after joining the Imperial Japanese Army.

Nineteen seventy-four was the year that welcomed the bouncing baby glitterati of Ryan Seacrest, Xzibit, and Victoria Beckham, while saying goodbye to tried-and-true legends like Cass Elliott, Duke Ellington, Bud Costello, and Agnes Moorehead. In the wonderful world of literature, panelists, Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson scandalized the Nobel Foundation by jointly awarding themselves the prize for Johnson’s "narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom" and Martinson’s "writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos".

Of course they did. Apparently hack authors like Shel Silverstein, Patricia Highsmith, Maya Angelou, Studs Terkel, Kurt Vonnegut, Zig Zigler, Gabriel García Márquez, and Judy Blume had absolutely nothing insightful or compelling to tell.

Nineteen seventy-four was also the year that Elaine Noble became the first openly queer individual to be elected to a state legislature when she joined the Massachusetts House of Representatives. One month later, Allan Spear, future President of the Minnesota State Senate, revealed to the world that he was a proud gay man.

And in Southern Illinois, a twitchy little blogger-to-be rocked the bowl cut, practiced her cursive, learned her multiplication tables, and began a love affair for the ages when she discovered homonyms.

But 1974 was notable for one other very important milestone: an passionate young lesbian published the groundbreaking novel, Riverfinger Women.

Book:  Riverfinger Women

Author: Elana Dykewomon

Publisher: OpenRoads Media

In her debut, coming-of-age novel, Dykewomon presents Inez and her circle of friends—the Riverfinger Women—who are all struggling to find themselves amid the changing social mores of the Civil Rights era. Inez, who has known she was a lesbian since childhood, moves from the conservative confines of her boarding school to a Greenwich Village apartment populated by a host of moveable figures. It is in the Village that she encounters cascading new emotions—friendship, romance, longing, disappointment, and a sexual relationship, with schoolmate Abby. Along with their wide-open friend, Peggy, Inez and Abby begin a transition into womanhood, all the while confronting unexpected prejudices. As the story unfolds, the Riverfinger Women explore sexual violence, prostitution, drugs, love, and odd snippets of happiness during this unique time of personal and sexual discovery.

Many readers of contemporary lesbian literature tend to shy away from stories that make them work for a payoff. Opting instead for sexy romps between Barbie twins with impressive bank accounts, or high-adrenaline shootouts featuring tough and chewy butches with guns and the vulnerable hotties who love them. However, Riverfinger Women, penned by Dykewomon when she was only twenty-four years old, is both a feminist manifesto and hallmark of lesbian fiction. It manages to combine equal parts YA angst with cutting-edge exploratory fiction. It’s deep. It’s dark, It’s gritty. And, it’s a little bit salty. It starts out slowly, and builds into the powerful confession of a woman and a lesbian coming into her true self.

Riverfinger Women is a story that should be read by every lesbian “of a certain age,” because it deconstructs themes that have run through all of our lives. Dyekwomon’s women made the world what it is today, just as surely as she helped make us the women we can be today. But younger readers should read this novel, too. Specifically because it was written 40 years ago when life as a woman and as a lesbian were harder, when society was less tolerant, and when books like this were published in back rooms and mailed out in brown paper wrappers.

Forty-years ago, I was seven going on eight. I didn’t know what a lesbian was, but I’m pretty sure I was one. Elana Dykewomon, and a legion of strong, smart, and courageous women made sure that when I grew up, I could say “lesbian” without having to whisper, that I could marry the love of my life—legally, and that I could write a very public blog on the World Wide Web featuring books by, for, and about women just like us. We owe Elana and all of our foremothers the respect of reading the stories that helped change our world. This is our one, true birthright.

Book:  Time Fries! Aging Gracelessly in Rehoboth Beach

Author: Fay Jacobs

Publisher: A&M Books

Here’s one of the worst kept secrets of the Lesbiverse: I have a spouse-approved crush on Fay Jacobs. It’s true. When I grow up, I want to be Fay Jacobs. Until then, I’ll settle for being her Cabana girl. This is not an easy job. I have to be at the ready with a martini shaker, polarized Foster Grants, bleu cheese stuffed olives, and three different kinds of vodka—none of which I might add, are named “Popov.”

When I finally got to meet her in person a few months ago, I actually screamed like a teenage groupie at a Justin Bieber court hearing. I think I might have even jumped up and down, asked for an autograph, and thrown my bra at her. I can’t remember, what with all the swooning and giggling. Fay is a pro, though. She’s used to forty-something lesbians flinging black Wacoals in her path. Still, she had the good sense to be amused, sign an autograph, and get her picture taken with me before requesting a Temporary Restraining Order.

Our relationship is complicated, but it works for us.

Yes, I love me some Fay Jacobs.

I also love me some Time Fries! Aging Gracelessly in Rehoboth Beach. In this, her latest madcap memoir, Fay takes on technology, social media, catastrophic insurance, a passive-aggressive GPS, the repeal of DOMA, retirement, downsizing, and her very own Big, Fat Jewish Wedding.  Heck, she even cops to her own life-long, spouse-approved crush on the lovely and talented Angela Lansbury.

As with her three previous memoirs, Fay’s stories range from the warm, wise, and witty to the laugh-out-loud. Along the way, she reminds us how far we have come, but cautions at the distance yet to travel. As is her trademark, Ms. Jacobs approaches each essay with bracing honesty, homespun humor, and a hearty helping of self-deprecation. Her writing is crisp and clean, but her storytelling is epic.

While I might be a bit biased, it’s impossible to deny that Fay Jacobs is a national treasure. Time Fries! and its companions (As I Lay Frying, Fried & True, and For Frying Out Loud) really and truly should be read and savored. Fay’s stories are our stories—they’re just a little more zany, usually involve a marauding horde of Mini Schnauzers, and are served straight up in a martini glass.

***

As a reviewer, I have been writing about lesbian literature for three-and-a-half years. Until now, I’ve had one simple, ironclad rule: with so many established and emerging authors, I will only review each author once. This rule has served me well. But every now and then I long to revisit an author because the writing is something special, or because the work contains something that I want to put on the collective radar of the lesbian reading community. With this blog entry featuring Elana Dykewomon and Fay Jacobs, I’m breaking my own rule, and writing for a second time about two of our community’s greatest riches.

I chose Dykewomon’s coming-of-age Riverfinger Women because it has been re-released as an e-Book on its 40th anniversary. Dykewomon, a Jewish lesbian activist, is a trailblazer in lesbian literature who fiercely navigates an unkind world through her essays, poetry and fiction—all the while giving women and lesbians a strong voice and positive imagery. However, the general lesbian reading community tends to see Dykewomon more as a feminist who writes about lesbians, rather than as a lesbian who writes about women. The simple truth is that her voice is poetry, her message is positive, and she helped change how we read lesbian fiction today.

Besides my spouse-approved crush on Fay Jacobs, I chose Time Fries! because it captures brilliantly the profanity of the everyday world through the eyes of a mature woman. Jacobs, another Jewish lesbian activist, is likewise a trailblazer in lesbian literature who has flung open the doors to her life, teaching us lessons about faith, trust, love, survival, and dignity. She’s not just smart and funny, but passionate, sincere, and wide-open. She’s the premier storyteller of our writing community. Through her stories, everyone—male and female, and gay and straight—learn how provocative our everyday lives truly are.

Two books and two authors who span a writing generation.

Dykewomon, writing as a 24-year old, gave us a deep, dark, moody coming-of-age novel with a happy ending.

Jacobs writing as a 65-year old takes us on a celebration of life, and all that we hold holy: family, friends, community, the right to marry, and gay-friendly martini bars.

And the world is a very different place.

Beyond the Pale by Elana Dykewomon

Book: Beyond the Pale

Author: Elana Dykewomon

Publisher: Open Road Media

Sometimes a review isn’t so much a review as it is a call to action.

And, as I sat down to organize my thoughts on Beyond the Pale, I was reminded of the remarks by Jewelle Gomez, in her keynote address at the 2012 Golden Crown Literary Society Conference—she challenged that each of us must create our own stories, share our triumphs and tribulations, and leave signs for those who follow in our footsteps.

Her message was universal, and spoke to each of us in our many and varied roles.

We are women of color, feminists, activists, Jews, vegans, alcoholics, physically challenged—the list and the permutations go on ad infinitum. Most of us are lesbians. All of us are women.

In spite of our differences and our similarities, our stories will one day become history for others exactly as we read and learn today from those whom we follow. As individuals, we have the responsibility to question, challenge, and seek change, and as women we are duty bound to learn from our past as we press on for our shared futures.

We are a community.

And we are powerful.

No one knows the price

of comfort,

how much they loved each other

and expected, by jumping,

neither to live nor die

but fly

released…

Elana Dykewomon, from the collection, Nothing Will Be as Sweet as the Taste

In 1997, Elana Dykewomon made history a cautionary tale in her Ferro-Grumley Award- and Lambda Literary Award-winning novel, Beyond the Pale, which tells the stories of two Jewish women living through the dark and inhospitable days of the early 20th century.  

Born into unfortunate circumstances, Gutke Gurvich is taken in by a strong and determined woman whose kindness and caring changes the very course of her life. She is apprenticed to a midwife, and eventually meets her future "husband," a woman who lives her life as a very successful businessman. In 1889, Gutke attends to the birth of Chava Meyer, and foresees a life of struggle, strength, and courage. While still a young girl, Chava is brutally orphaned during the Kishinev pogrom, and emigrates to America with the family of her cousin Rose.

Money is tight, and the two young women begin working in sweatshops at the age of fourteen, as they struggle through the oppression and tragedies befalling Jews and immigrants of their time. They grow to become lovers, and meet up again with Gutke and her husband. The story swells to detail the lives of turn-of-the-century immigrant Jews, from meetings at the historic Henry Street Settlement House on the Lower East Side to the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911.

Beyond the Pale is a richly detailed and lyrical story about women who persevere in spite of the stifling oppression of sexism, anti-Semitism, social inequity, societal taboos, and crushing poverty. The women who populate its pages bridge the past and the future—metaphorically and symbolically. They make choices, ask questions, want more, sacrifice all, and through their courage and dogged determination, leave signs for the rest of us to follow.

The story has the force and power to affect any reader with an interest in the evolution of lesbian relationships, women's history, the Russian Jewish experience, immigration, or the successes and failures of the American labor movement. At times, Ms. Dykewomon’s writing is as poetic and beautiful as the novel is tragic and heart wrenching. Her storyline is intricate and well researched, and it provokes thoughtful consideration, compels sweet joy and devastating sorrow, and renders equal measures of depth and reflection on the problems of women, workers, labor unions, socialism, religion, and politics.

"When we consider our youth, we see only ourselves and the way the world unfolds in front of us. We are full figures walking among cutouts of buildings and people, never knowing exactly what's behind them—we don't care. But gradually we grow smaller and smaller, until we are part of the landscape in which we move, and then we find others all around us, moving, becoming part of time."

Author & Activist
Elana Dykewomon

Beyond the Pale is historical fiction, and it is arguably one of the foremost works of modern lesbian literature. 

I am challenging authors and readers who have not yet discovered this novel to pick it up, read it, and spend some time contemplating and discussing the signs left not only by the characters within the story, but also by Ms. Dykewomon.

"Plums were falling into the river. Seven, eight, nine ... a hundred and one ... all the trees were bent over like old men bowing towards Jerusalem, their branches scraping the ground."

So, this post is no more a review than Beyond the Pale is a sweet love story populated by comfortable formulas and happy endings: they are both about where we, as women and lesbians, came from and where we’re going.

"The train left the dark tunnels under Grand Central Station. I closed my eyes and felt surrounded by gentleness."

Jewelle was right, it's about leaving signs.

Beyond the Pale was originally published in 1997 by the legendary Press Gang Publishing, a feminist printing and publishing collective—the eBook edition was released by Open Road Media in June, 2013. Click here for more information.