Overview

"The act of ""coming out"" has the power to transform every aspect of a woman's life: family, friendships, career, sexuality, spirituality. An essential element of self-realization, it is the unabashed acceptance of one's ""outlaw"" standing in a predominantly heterosexual world. These accounts -- sometimes heart-wrenching, often exhilarating -- encompass a wide breadth of backgrounds and experiences. From a teenager institutionalized for her passion for women to the mother who must come out to her young sons at the risk of losing them -- from the cautious academic to the raucous liberated femme -- each woman represented here tells of forging a unique path toward the difficult but emancipating recognition of herself. Extending from the 1940s to the present day, these intensely personal stories in turn reflect a unique history of the changing social mores that affected each woman's ability to determine the shape of her own life. Together they form an ornate tapestry of lesbian and bisexual experience in the United States over the past half-century."

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9780380802470

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Reviews

A diverse and lively anthology of popular lesbian and bisexual authors writing about the multifaceted phenomenon of coming out. -- Kirkus Sometimes funny, at other times full of pathos, these coming-out stories are unfailingly moving. -- Booklist Each of these tales -- and the women behind them -- startle and move us in miraculous ways. This collection of thirty-one tales -- cantankerous, humorous, sometimes bitter, often fortuitous, sometimes regretful, and mostly relieved and satisfied -- forces us to grapple with the hard realities and the alluring mysteries of what it means to be a sexual person -- of many hues and ambitions -- in the world today. -- Michael Bronski Even family needs a woman like that! -- Rita Mae Brown A book of writers' coming out stories! Now we need a CD of singers' coming out songs, an exhibition of painters' coming out paintings, a ballet of choreographers' coming out dances, etc., to go with this exaltation. -- Kate Clinton I hated to see these stories end. I wanted to write each of the writers and say, 'Thank you for your honesty. You helped me understand more about the immeasurable ways we are human.' -- Toi Derricotte

A diverse and lively anthology of popular lesbian and bisexual authors writing about the multifaceted phenomenon of coming out. The paradoxical central beauty and flaw of this anthology is the construct of coming out itself. Larkin (ed., Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time, not reviewed, etc.) acknowledges in her introduction that coming out can refer to anything from a first embrace to a political statement. The most successful essays tell an actual story. Karla Jay's First Love at summer camp stands out as particularly hilarious and poignant. Heather Lewis's blunt, devastating story spans her first experiences with women as a 12-year-old and her father's sadistic attempts to have her cured. Cheryl Boyce Taylor captures the open, innocent sensuality she and her childhood girlfriends shared juxtaposed against isolation and threats of violence that pepper her adult lesbian life. Some writers gloss over or shirk the actual moment of coming out to write more generally about lesbian identity - the stuff of standard gay/lesbian anthology fare. A few essays lack cohesion; several authors submitted stories in a stilted, amateurish, journal-entry format that detracts from their evocative material. The book as a whole may have arrived 15 years too late, when coming out is less the cutting-edge issue for queer people, having been supplanted by more topical concerns, such as gay marriage, postgay theories, and hate-crime legislation. However, lesbian readers will appreciate these reminiscences for the voyeurism: a bird's-eye view of an admired writer fumbling and breathless in her first embrace. The most profound insight here comes from seasoned lesbian writer and activist Jill Johnston: Should it ever cease to be necessary to come out, a lesbian or gay identity would itself cease to exist. An uneven but enjoyable collection of original reflections on the notion of the process of coming out and its continued necessity. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Joan Larkin is a Lambda Award-winning poet and co-editor of three previous anthologies, including the groundbraking Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time. Her most recent books are Cold River and Glad Day: Daily Meditations for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender People.

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