Amazon.com Review
Jenifer Levin has received acclaim for her novels, particularly Water Dancer and The Sea of Light. This collection of short stories, her first, covers her writing from 1977 to 1995 and treats us to a fine sampling of her talent and imagination. In an introduction, Levin notes that many of these pieces could not be published when they were written because explicitly sexual and butch/fem themes were not considered "appropriate" for lesbian writing. Levin has lasted longer than her critics, and this Love and Death & Other Disasters is as fine and compelling a collection of fiction--lesbian, gay, or straight--as you will find anywhere today.
From 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.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
