Woman Like That: Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories »

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.

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.

Publishers Weekly

Reflecting the breadth and depth of the contemporary lesbian experience, these 31 coming-out stories collected by Larkin--co-editor of Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time--attest to their editor's training and sensibility as a poet (Cold River, etc.). Most of the featured authors have publishing credits in more than one genre and exhibit a refreshing facility with language. The stylistic and narrative variation, from Judith Katz's rollicking "Born Queer" to Judy Grahn's poetic "Windows," save the book from thematic sameness; the generally crisp prose keeps it from being pedantic. Many of the stories are, by necessity, coming-of-age stories, and several are, predictably, assertions of tomboyhood as a precursor to lesbianism. Several authors reveal the darker implications of breaking the traditional female mold, in moving and serious essays about having been forced into psychiatric treatment (Heather Lewis) and losing custody of children (Minnie Bruce Pratt). These are nicely offset by more lighthearted essays about wearing makeup and dresses, by Tristan Taoromino and Lesl a Newman. Because Larkin invited mostly established writers to this anthology, it reads a little like a period piece, heavily weighted to the heyday of lesbian feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. With only a few exceptions, the essays are beautifully written, brought to life by humor and telling detail. Enhanced by the period author photos at the close of each essay, this collection could be put to good use in the classroom and especially by budding lesbians. Agent, Sydelle Kramer, Frances Goldin Literary Agency. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.