Love and Death, and Other Disasters: Stories 1977-1995 »

Jenifer Levin's first collection of short stories, this volume represents work written over the past 20 years--some of it never before published. Intimate, raw, erotically charged, sometimes comic and deeply disturbing, always passionate, these stories center on lesbian relationships with lovers, children, family.

Publishers Weekly

The author of The Sea of Light and Water Dancer wrote stories from 1977 through 1995, but, as she notes in her wry preface, had trouble selling them until she had published her novels. "It just goes to show you: If you live long enough, you come back into fashion." Individually, these are fast-moving, highly readable stories. Taken together, though, the uniformity of tone, theme and subject is a little deadening. Most of these stories incorporate the complexities of relationships, more specifically butch-femme lesbian relationships. "After the Bath" is a tale of seduction: a woman picks up another woman in a bar and is thrilled to be offered a luxurious bubble bath. "La Bruja" is the object of Addy's affections, but circumstances keep them apart until Addy visits the dying woman in the hospital and then whisks her away for a night at the Waldorf Astoria. In "The Butterfly," a woman brings her girlfriend home to her family and contends with her apparently unstable brother. In the title story, Callie lives with Pat but still feels tied to her ex-girlfriend Lu, with whom she shares a child and who was diagnosed with cancer shortly after their break-up. Rewrites of the Pied Piper (in "The Piper," a woman whose "pipe" is a sexual accoutrement falls in love with the daughter of Hamlin's mayor) and an Inuit myth ("Takankapsaluk") are less successful, often verging on silly. Levin has an engaging voice. But waiting to collect the stories until there was a broader range would have done her talent more justice. (Dec.)