Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler [Paperback]

Holly Hughes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 1996

Obie Award–winning performance artist and playwright Holly Hughes takes the reader on a personal tour across America with visits to Michigan’s Mystery Spot, the floor of the U.S. Senate, and New York’s WOW Cafe, where notions of theater and femaleness are taken apart and put back together.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You never know how writing for the stage will translate to the page, but the five performance pieces in "Clit Notes" make the move remarkably well. Perhaps because Holly Hughes is a brilliant writer, which you will discover when you read this incredible collection. The hysterically funny "The Well of Horniness",; which my girlfriend remembers almost having to walk out of because she was laughing so hard she was afraid she would pee in her pants, is almost as dangerous when read alone. What might qualify Hughes for genius stature, though, is how she hooks that humor to the most savage truth, as she does in the latter three pieces in the collection about, among other things, her mother, her father, and growing up "middle everything" in America. If any work outlasts our present era, this may be among it.Clit Notes is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Drama.

From Library Journal

Known to most readers as one of the central figures of recent NEA grant controversy, Obie Award winner Holly Hughes has collected her performance texts in this volume. Her early pieces, such as The Well of Horniness, were originally aimed at the small audiences of the WOW Cafe, an experimental lesbian theater that was poorly funded but open to new ideas back in 1983. Witty, sarcastic, and a little bit bitter, the author gave women the opportunity to be silly away from the male gaze. It is doubtful that these plays will appeal to everyone, but they share some creative traits also found in the writings of Alfred Jarry and William Burroughs. Other lesbian writers will probably be more enduring, but few are as popular at the moment. Good for large collections with a strong emphasis on gay/lesbian studies or contemporary art.?Susan Olcott, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st edition (March 11, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802133339
• ISBN-13: 978-0802133335
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #326,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Drama > Lesbian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Had me laughing out loud and made me wish I was a lesbian!, April 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler (Paperback)

Holly Hughes' Clit Notes is an intelligent, moving, and sharply funny collection of monolouges and personal stories. Cutting and in the same turn of phrase totally vulnerable, her work creates the portrait of a new woman of the '90's, an in your face, smart, funny, sensitive, lesbian. Anybody, male or female, gay or not should pick up this book! Highly recommended!!!

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sapphic Serenade, June 18, 2000

By 

"tess73" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler (Paperback)

Holly Hughes injects liberal amounts of humour in this marvellous collection of anecdotes, monologues and short plays. Sexy, sassy, sometimes silly - but never boring - the reader is treated to tongue-in-cheek stabs at society's indiosyncracies. Delightful!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uneven but Good, December 5, 2001

By 

kurq (Eagan, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler (Paperback)

The first play "The Well of Horniness", is an absolute scream. I mean serious, gut-busting, knee-slapping funny. The remaining plays are just okay. "The Well" is so good though, I still recommend the book.