Girls, Visions and Everything: A Novel [Paperback]

Sarah Schulman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 1999

This reissued novel takes readers on a "wry and playful" (Out!) tour of lesbian sex, politics, and art in New York City. The city's sizzling -- especially at the Kitsch-Inn, where the girls are mounting an all-female production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lila Futuransky is a lesbian living on the East Side of New York who admires Jack Kerouac and is determined to emulate her hero. She wanders around the city, takes many lovers, but then she meets Emily. They fall for each other, and soon Lila must choose between her love for Emily and her desire to continue living out her fantasy from On the Road. Unfortunately Schulman tries to imitate Kerouac's writing style rather than develop her own voice. Moreover, the narrative bogs down in Lila's wanderings, which lead to sketchy encounters with stereotypical druggies, homophobes and homosexual artists. There are too many unnecessary characters, and the setting, Manhattan's hip, wild, creative downtown scene, does not come alive.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press; 2 edition (August 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580050220
• ISBN-13: 978-1580050227
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,131,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sarah Schulman is the author of fifteen books, including nine novels. Forthcoming is the hard cover edition of a new nonfiction book THE GENTRIFICATION OF THE MIND: WItness to a Lost Imagination by University of California Press, to be followed in Spring, 2012 by the paperback of TIES THAT BIND: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences Then is Fall 2012, Duke University Press will publish ISRAEL/PALESTINE AND THE QUEER INTERNATIONAL. Most recently the paperback edition of her novel THE MERE FUTURE was published by Arsenal Pulp.Previous novels are THE CHILD, SHIMMER, EMPATHY, RAT BOHEMIA, PEOPLE IN TROUBLE, AFTER DELORE, GIRLS VISIONS AND EVERYTHING and THE SOPHIE HOROWITZ STORY. Her nonfiction titles are TIES THAT BIND: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, STAGESTRUCK:Theater, AIDS and the Marketing of Gay America, and MY AMERICAN HISTORY: Lesbian and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years. A working playwright, her productions include: CARSON McCULLERS (published by Playscripts Ink), MANIC FLIGHT REACTION and the theatrical adaptation of Isaac Singer's ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY. As a screenwriter, her films include THE OWLS (co-written with director Cheryl Dunye)- Berlin Film Festival 2010, MOMMY IS COMING (co-written with director Cheryl Dunye)- Berlin Film Festival selection 2011, and she is co-producer with Jim Hubbard of his feature documentary UNITED IN ANGER: A History of ACT UP, which will premiere in Jan/Feb 2012.. SOPHIE, a film based on her 1984 novel, THE SOPHIE HOROWITZ STORY is being written and director by Claude Mangold and is currently in pre-production. As a journalist, her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and Interview. She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwrighting, a Fullbright in Judaic Studies, two American Library Association Book Awards, and is the 2009 recipient of the Kessler Prize for sustained contribution to LGBT studies. Sarah is Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York, College of State Island, a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University. She is on the advisory board of the Center for Human Rights and Social Movements at Harvard's Kennedy School. She is the US coordinator of the first LGBT Delegation to Palestine. She lives in New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books., June 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Girls, Visions and Everything (Paperback)

A quirky novel about lesbians on the Lower East Side of New York. They fall in love, have sex with friends, imagine themselves as great American heros, work dull jobs, and endear themselves to the reader. Schulman richly describes lesbians in the context of their own community and the larger society around them. Very funny, very sexy.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the classic lesbian novel., May 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Girls, Visions and Everything (Paperback)

This changed the way lesbians read, write and live. By taking the myth of Jack Kerouac and the American male on the highway, and adapting it to a lesbian, Sara Shulman not only situated herself within the American canon, but she took the worn out bohemian formulas and reinvigorated them.A classic in every sense.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, June 11, 2009

By 

Nikki! - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girls, Visions and Everything: A Novel (Paperback)

It's unfortunate that most lesbian fiction follows the same formula--straight girl meets lesbian, straight girl falls in love with lesbian, straight girl deals with general homophobia while trying to love lesbian, etc etc. Thankfully the world has been graced with Schulman, who has opted not to follow this typical (and now boring) blueprint of how to write a lesbian novel.

While Schulman has written heavily on the AIDS crisis (Rat Bohemia, People In Trouble) that she experienced firsthand during the 80s and 90s, this novel focuses more on lesbian friendships and relationships as the lower east side becomes more and more gentrified by those who simply couldn't give a crap about real art. Schulman, a real artist herself, uses her sharp eye and equally sharp words to create a world that is both realistic and fantastic. There is no typical straight-girl-soul-searching in this novel--instead, the reader is transported right in the middle of the protagonists world as she searches for meaning, life, adventure, and creative freedom with her friends. Girls, Visions and Everything is one of Schulman's earlier novels, so her writing style has not yet developed to the point that it's at today, but she still manages to capture tricky subjects despite how inexperienced she was at the time.

I loved every minute of it, and the shortcomings, though they exist, didn't detract from the immense pleasure I got out of reading this novel. In short--it was exactly what I was looking for. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to read it again.