Review
Analyzing 167 novels and short story collections labeled lesbian, Zimmerman positions each at a sign post along the route of the archetypal lesbian hero: traveler toward self-discovery, exclusionary love, and search for community. Fiction writers generally lay their heads on the block of critical analysis all the time, and lesbian writers, if acknowledged, find theirs in the basket more often than not. Their work called upon here to be representative of a truth about any one of the way-stations along Zimmerman's three-stage lesbian pilgrimage is both honor and hazard. A professor of women's studies at San Diego State University and selfaffirmed lesbian, Bonnie Zimmerman has been there. She argues with insight, candor, forbearance and readable prose, deconstructing each text with a merciful minimum of jargon. Acknowledging a small bias, she defines her audience as a "composite feminist academic lesbian activist." Caveat aside, for readers interested in exploring an unfamiliar genre, here against its historical background and with a look to its future, is a discerning overview of lesbian fiction of the last twenty years. There is, as well, a useful index, and a bibliography for well-read lesbians to pick up on anything they may have missed. -- From Independent Publisher
