The Avian Hourglass
Lindsey Drager
Dzanc Books, 2024, 212 pages
$17.95

Reviewed by Sara Youngblood Gregory

Author and professor Lindsey Drager’s latest novel, The Avian Hourglass, is a kaleidoscopic, rigorous, and sometimes disorienting movement through speculative fiction and surrealism.

Written in the first person, the novel follows an unnamed narrator struggling to manage her life in a small, sometimes claustrophobic town. The narrator is a bus driver but dreams of becoming a radio astronomer, dutifully studying to take the exam she has already failed four times. Meanwhile, she acts as the legal guardian to triplets—children she gave birth to as a gestational surrogate but whose parents died in a car accident before the novel’s opening. As if this weren’t enough, the narrator, her children, and a patchwork of town folks must grapple with The Crisis, a looming and insistently vague upheaval that disappears birds, covers the stars, and acts as a stand-in for environmental and political degradation and emotional estrangement.

However, if you are expecting a typical end-of-the-world novel about loneliness, climate change, and the human spirit, The Avian Hourglass is a different beast entirely. Rather than focus on the material pursuits of apocalypse—like food or pollution or gathering supplies—Drager is concerned with emotional and linguistic sustenance. The narrator frequently considers etymology, memory, birds’ nests, planets, and legends with an almost orbital obsession.

Near the novel’s opening, the narrator shares some of these stream-of-conscious, cyclical thoughts:

“Luce tells me the world effect comes from the Old French and Latin for completion, result, accomplishment, and ending. Intent, she says, comes from intend, which in Old French means to stretch or extend. The problem is this: the idea of having intention—the idea of having control over effects by altering their causes—seems silly when my deja vu confirms for me that every move I make was meant to be. This is how I know I’ll pass the test” (18).

At times, these musings are arresting—at others confusing—but perhaps all the more powerful for it. All in all, The Avian Hourglass is a compelling, intellectual, and emotionally-charged take on climate fiction.

Sara Youngblood Gregory is a lesbian journalist and poet. She serves on the board of directors for Sinister Wisdom.

The Land is Holy
noam keim
Radix Media, 2024, 180 pages
$24.95

Reviewed by Courtney Heidorn

“My blood is trying to tell me something, and in the dark of the house I am trying to listen” (15).

In The Land is Holy, noam keim crafts lyrical essays, each braided with profound metaphors containing miles of connections across generations and geography. Through stories of storks, aoudads, and linden tea, the reader witnesses a mosaic of keim’s ethnic and cultural reality. keim is a Jewish Arab born in Occupied Palestine, who spent their childhood and young adulthood in France, and finally moved to Turtle Island in their adulthood. The Land is Holy is a gift for readers searching for a home in our postcolonial world.

For keim, home sometimes means freedom and exile. Their complicated relationship with home is put into perspective with their striking natural metaphors. Like keim, the aoudad has an interesting history of migration and displacement. They write, “The aoudads have switched homes, trading their ancestral West to the West of the new world” (33). This migration and displacement is keim’s lived experience. All of keim’s geographical homes are tainted by histories of conquest and colonization, so they must find true home amidst grief. They lament, “I am grieving and I want to blame geography for my grief. If I were home, I wouldn’t feel grief anymore” (40, italics theirs). What is home, then? Geography? A feeling? People? To keim, home may be constant migration.

Birds are an important motif in The Land is Holy, but their prime function is to display the natural reality of movement and liberation. keim recounts a rare outdoor prison visit with their friend, where they see a starling fly over. At this time, they were discussing liberation (24). The collection opens with a stork flying home for spring: “They will return. Storks always find their way back home” (12). keim suggests that migration, seasonal travel towards a place that meets your needs, is liberation. Starlings and storks know when and where to fly by instinct. Their act of flying home, and keim’s act of discerning their own home, should be as natural as breathing.

keim leaves the proverbial nest of their childhood to answer the call of liberation. When she is young, keim’s mother changes her name from Hassiba to Hassida. Just one letter changes the meaning of her mother’s name to the Hebrew word for stork, “becoming the only home she would know” (16). Hassida’s chosen name is the driving theme of this collection. However, keim has not spoken to their mother since they left France. Despite this, they write: “I seem to always return to the feeling of being my mother’s child” (17). Their relationship with their mother is a place of deep love yet also hurt, requiring sacrifice and grief. Like the stork, keim always finds their way back home to their mother, albeit metaphorically.

keim discusses how important the concept of flâne is to them; it directly translates to “wander,” “stroll,” or “saunter” aimlessly. But to them, it gains a political meaning: flâne is “the holiness of the unplanned, the cycles of rebirth that come from experiencing new realities” (145). The reader must practice flâne when reading The Land is Holy. This collection of essays is meant to be wandered through. Read only a few essays at a time and savor its holy land.

Courtney Heidorn (she/they) holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Azusa Pacific University. You can see more of their work in their chapbook, Palimpsest, from Bottlecap Press and at CURIOUS Magazine and Pearl Press.

Queer Art: From Canvas to Club, and the Spaces Between
Gemma Rolls-Bentley
Frances Lincoln (Quarto), 2024, 240 pages
$35.00

Reviewed by Bell Pitkin

Divided into three acts, renowned curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley explores how contemporary LGBTQI artists have utilized various mediums to explore ideas of queer space, queer bodies, and queer power in her new book: Queer Art: from Canvas to Club, and the Spaces Between. Whether you’re an artist, a curator, or just an admirer of the arts, this book is required reading. Rolls-Bentley goes beyond providing historical context and looks to the ways in which queer art and visual culture have radically shaped and aided our communities. She writes, “Queer people channel the power to redress realities: excavating queer histories and distilling lessons of the past to create a foundation upon which to project, manifest, and build better futures, new ways of being, and new worlds” (214).

Included in the list of highlighted artists are many who have collaborated with Sinister Wisdom, such as Tee Corinne, whose photograph graced the cover of Issue 3, Clarity Haynes, whose oil painting was featured in the 2023 calendar, and JEB (Joan E. Biren), who has been a long-time collaborator and friend of the journal. In addition to providing more context about some of my favorite queer artists, there were many names I was pleased to be introduced to, including drag king Whiskey Chow, cubist painter Nina Chanel Abney, and documentary photographer Bex Wade. As the years pass and the shape of art continues to change, I’m excited to see which artists join those listed in these pages. There’s so much beauty that’s yet to be created.

All art is magical, but queer art is especially magical. Of the more than two hundred artists included in Queer Art, each has used their creativity to explore their identity, share their unique perspectives, and advocate for their community. Take inspiration from the beauty within these pages and create your queertopia.

Bell Beecher Pitkin is a multi-media artist who lives and works between Charlotte, North Carolina and Boston, Massachusetts. They received their bachelor of arts from Wellesley College, where they studied Cinema and Media with a concentration in Photography. Within their practice, Bell works primarily with medium format photography to explore notions of the archive, family, and the queer identity, often situated in the landscape and mysticism of the Southern United States. Bell currently serves as the Gallery Manager for the Leica Boston Gallery and as a Curatorial Assistant for Sinister Wisdom.

All In: Cancer, Near Death, New Life
Caitlin Breedlove
AK Press, 2024, 152 pages
$18.00

Reviewed by Margaret Zanmiller

Caitlin Breedlove’s All In delivers a raw experience of an often ignored queer woman’s perspective concerning an ovarian cancer diagnosis. The memoir follows Breedlove from winter 2021 to autumn 2022, though readers are occasionally transported to Breedlove’s life before her diagnosis and to moments with ancestors. Breedlove encourages us as readers, all experiencing a collective sickness, to understand the cycles of our lives, be in communion with our ancestors and community, embrace change, and move forward with radical honesty. We are living in a time when disability is becoming more common for the American people. Our institutions ignore COVID-19 and other mental and physical illnesses, and our support for the disabled community wavers. Breedlove shares her experience with disability, working against persistent erasure.

Breedlove writes for mothers, queers, immigrant daughters, those passed on, and those surviving with cancer (27; 119). Stories from people like Breedlove fight against the traditional expectation to erase sickness and death from Western culture and discourse. Through engagement with stories such as Breedlove’s, change and suffering become a little more approachable simply because we no longer feel we are doing it alone. Breedlove notes the small number of books about cancer written by and for oppressed individuals. Breedlove, in the personal process of becoming a ‘filled bowl,’ is filling a collective bowl with her story. She approaches her story of cancer and near death with care, love, and empowerment. She adds new and collective tools to dismantle the masters’ house. For example, her descriptions of pain and near-death help to dismantle the white supremacist ideals of perfectionism and individualism (Okun, 2021) we typically find in books written by white women with cancer.

Themes of this chronology include motherhood, queerness, and Eastern European spirituality and culture. Readers searching for depictions of motherhood in all its pain and glory, the safety and healing of queer communities, and the beautiful simplicity of spirituality should be pleased with this book.

Towards the end of the book, Breedlove addresses her repetitive approach to writing; she states that this repetition reflects her natural state of forgetfulness that comes with sickness and opioid usage (95). I think the book’s repetitive nature also emphasizes a necessary approach to our collective struggles. Our brains and, often, our social status protect us from hearing what invokes change. We are rightfully rehearing and repeating congruent lessons. This (un)learning furthers our ability to be intersectional and non-binary in our thinking. Each lesson relearned directly challenges our individualistic comfort, our collective comfort, and our regime’s stability. The institutions around us, the systems that rule the Western world, work tirelessly to erase our stories and our progression. They encourage the disregard and silence surrounding our stories. Breedlove chronicles herself. She writes fully in her life, body, mind, and spirit.

Overall, Breedlove’s story is not just her own, but our collective experience with an oppressive state demanding overwork, overproduction, and silent death. She uses a refreshing writing style that inspires acceptance and confidence. In this book, readers sit with the reality of our collective sickness, the power of our stories, and our ability to be reborn alongside the ever-changing world.

Margaret Zanmiller is a Saint Paul dyke with a BA in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies from the University of Minnesota.

Private Rites
Julia Armfield
Flatiron Books, 2024, 304 pages
$27.99

Reviewed by Catherine Horowitz

When will you know that the apocalypse has arrived? When will the realization come that we’ve progressed too far in destroying the world to reverse it? Julia Armfield’s speculative novel Private Rites is a vivid depiction of an apocalypse of the mundane, where people make gradual adjustments to the world’s worsening conditions, ultimately doing what it takes to continue their lives around it.

In the world of Private Rites, there is heavy rainfall every day, with only a few minutes of respite. Water levels continue to rise. People live on the upper floors of collapsing high-rise buildings and take public boats to work, while the wealthy flee to less affected areas and use advanced technology to delay being impacted. This didn’t happen all at once; it was a gradual decline, with fewer and fewer sunny days until people were stuck trying to remember the last sunburn they had.

Amid this, Isla, Irene, and Agnes must navigate the death of their father and their own strained relationships. Isla is a high-strung eldest daughter, Irene is short-tempered, and Agnes, ten years younger than her sisters, is distant and impossible to reach. Their father was an acclaimed architect who designed many of the buildings adapted to the rising water levels but was absent and sometimes cruel to his daughters. The sisters are forced together when he dies and find themselves entrenched in conflicts both familial and widespread.

At its core, Private Rites is a beautiful and lifelike depiction of sibling and family relationships and their complexities. It puts words to facets of sibling relationships I hadn’t thought to name, like the “strange back-dated nature of the things [siblings] choose to know” about you and how uniquely frustrating this is.

There is another layer of complexity as well: how to navigate one’s personal life during the literal apocalypse. Is it worth it to try to work through relationships or to grow as a person when the ocean could rise about your apartment any day? Although our world may not feel quite as dire as this one, it can still be challenging to balance both one’s personal life and the fact that the planet is burning and people are suffering in a much more pressing way.

Armfield is also a thoughtful and meticulous world-builder, constructing a landscape that extends far beyond the confines of the book. The world-building goes down to the smallest details, like the fact that people drink chicory coffee because coffee beans can’t grow anymore, cremations are mandated by law since it’s impossible to bury bodies, and the cleaner, more controlled suburbs are called the “millponds.” The landscape of Private Rites is as important as its plot, and Armfield makes it feel both real and terrifyingly feasible.

While Private Rites starts off slow-paced, focusing primarily on its three protagonists and their histories, relationships, and daily lives, Armfield scatters hints throughout the landscape that something more catastrophic is coming. This sense of anticipation grows gradually throughout the book, which turns from a slice-of-life novel set at the end of the world into a thriller. For the last third of the book, I couldn’t put it down.

There is also the King Lear element of the book, which is labeled as a “speculative reimagining.” The parallels are clear: a powerful father dies and causes conflict in dividing his properties among his three daughters. The youngest daughter is the clear outlier. Tense familial relationships lead to destruction. I wouldn’t exactly call Private Rites a reimagining, though; I would say it exists in conversation with King Lear. The plots diverge in ways that sometimes feel like deliberate inversions but more often feel unrelated. It might be a fun exercise for someone familiar with both texts to further interpret them in comparison, drawing out thematic parallels and significant differences. Ultimately, though, while knowledge of King Lear might be rewarding in some ways, it isn’t necessary to understand Private Rites and its larger themes.

Private Rites is a thoughtful, moving book that intertwines a personal story with a larger climate catastrophe. Although thrilling and fast-paced at the end, its larger world and multifaceted characters are what make it powerful. It’s also a masterful representation of rain and wateriness; I’ve never felt more relieved to emerge into hot, sunny weather.

Catherine Horowitz is a writer and teacher living in Washington, D.C. She earned a B.A. in English and Jewish Studies from Oberlin College. You can find her other work in Bright Wall/Dark Room, New Voices, and the Jewish Women’s Archive.

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
Sabrina Imbler
Hachette Book Group, Back Bay Books, 2024, 288 pages
$21.99

Reviewed by Dot Persica

I was in Brooklyn waiting for an audition when I stepped into Greenlight Bookstore to pass the time. How Far the Light Reaches immediately seized my attention. I didn’t know it would be a Queer book when I picked it up; I was just captivated by the cover illustrated by Simon Ban. I can’t help but think it’s no coincidence Queer people keep finding each other in the midst of the world’s attempts to isolate us. Something at my fingertips must have known before I did why, once I picked up this book, I could not part with it.

How Far the Light Reaches has everything. Imbler takes us on a journey of self-discovery by connecting ten sea creatures with peculiar characteristics to events in the author’s life: they dive into their relationship with their mother and disordered eating through the story of the octopus mother who starves in order to protect her eggs; they travel back to their grandmother’s youth guided by the Chinese sturgeon; they look deep into their present and future, exploring what it means to be different and to be part of a whole through creatures like hybrids and salps. Imbler’s experiences with sex, race—specifically being biracial and Asian in America—their gender nonconformity and the constant discovery of who they have been and who they are becoming are explored alongside each creature, connected seamlessly. The isolation of being racialized in a predominantly white context, the overwhelming joy of discovering spaces in which they are no longer the minority, the pain and the solace found in being who they are, navigating the aftermath of sexual assault, finding love and losing it and finding it elsewhere, everywhere—are all experiences that coexist and overlap. They cannot be separated but are dissected in this book like little animals, part of Imbler’s quest for answers.

This is the strange and beautiful, perfectly crafted child of the memoir and the encyclopedia.

As I was reading, I felt as though I was shifting from egg to larva to juvenile to adult, like one of the creatures described by the author: I was part of their delightful, excruciating, rewarding journey of growing up, and I felt as though I was going through all those changes myself in a strange time loop of my own making, pausing whenever I was forced by the outside world to look up from the book, and resuming my metamorphosis as soon as my eyes returned to the page.

Imbler digs to the root of painful topics in a gentle way. Their retelling of their trauma is for those who understand it: it’s an embrace rather than a slap; it doesn’t seek to spark compassion in the disinterested perpetrators. Imbler’s vulnerability is for those who have had similar experiences. In doing so, they hold not only their readers but also their own younger self (all their selves) in an embrace that lasts until the final page of this book, past the acknowledgements, and up to the last citation, maybe longer. This is a love letter to Queer people, an ode to the perpetual survival of marginalized communities against all odds.

I got through this book in two days because I am an autistic lesbian who wants to know the secrets of the ocean but was too bad at science to try to go into marine biology, but it would have been hard to put down regardless. The creatures chosen by Imbler for this personal and poetic work span from ordinary to almost mythical; we learn about the incredible adaptability of the goldfish and the surreal habitat of the yeti crab, living in conditions we consider absurd. Queerness is defying expectation, making it through, the same way nobody teaches ontogeny reversal to the immortal jellyfish, but somehow they know how to do it. Making sense of your existence on your own terms in a world that wants you docile and compliant because you are a “woman,” because you are Asian, is defying expectations. Loving someone who is like you when you are consistently told that the way you are is wrong: defying expectations. With each creature, the concepts of “natural” and “unnatural” are redefined—each creature is a key unlocking a facet of the human experience; each human experience is transposed into something greater, a whole that we are all part of.

How Far the Light Reaches is a window into each other, which means ourselves, through Imbler’s work. What a gift.

Dot Persica (any pronouns) is a lesbian performer born in Naples, Italy. They are a classically trained soprano with a vague dance background; they have experience directing opera, helping out here and there on film sets, and doing stand-up. They are a co-founder of the Italian lesbian+ collective STRASAFFICA*, with which they have organized community events, raised funds, and created beautiful bonds. They also write poetry, like all lesbians.

Cecilia
K-Ming Chang
Coffee House Press, 2024, 144 pages
$14.95

Reviewed by Gabe Tejada

Reading Cecilia was like suffering an ingrown toenail that causes blood and pus to ooze from tender flesh, concocting a putrid stench that haunts the nostrils as much as the pain of a pierced toe haunts the foot. I’ll stop with the figurative dramatics, though, if you enjoy that kind of writing, this novella by K-Ming Chang might just be for you.

Told through (or unfolding in the mind of) the main character and narrator, Seven, Cecilia is about that universal lesbian experience: the obsession with our first ‘situationship.’

Let me sing my praises before I turn you off the work. Chang triumphs in how she depicts and weaves together those forces in our lives that live just beyond the tangible. The sublimation—through Chang’s surreal prose—of cultural expectations, familial tensions and self-repressions that Seven experiences lend the story an almost instinctual telling. It is as if Seven’s “objective” reality, filtered through their perspective, was distilled into its purest (and therefore most visceral and animal) form. By dissolving the divide between internal and external, Cecilia’s reality becomes a new plane of existence—a third place resulting from the cross-contamination between the physical world and the psyche.

To read Cecilia is to step into Seven’s skin. This intimacy with Seven’s interiority makes the narrative more immediate. I felt the familial claustrophobia of an immigrant family whose embrace is as comforting as it is suffocating. I recognised those same bonds between Seven and their Ma and Ama—that cutting comfort between the women in the family. I yearned, just as Seven did, for “a boyhood for my bones” (65). Chang rends the stereotype of the submissive and docile Asian woman, with Seven even perceiving themself as a predator and consistently transgressing the bounds of appropriate feminine behaviours and desires.

Ultimately, though, I thought that Cecilia was better as a short story. The narrative was mired in a futile orbit, prolonged for the sake of semantical experimentation. I am, however, doubtful of this experiment’s success. Chang’s evocations of obsession were more iterative than generative. Each analepsis neither provided us with greater insight on just what made Seven so enamoured by and beholden to Cecilia—other than the fact that Cecilia was a manic pixie ‘Quirky Girl’—nor gave new insight or perspective on dyke yearning/co-dependency.

The only discernible progression in the narrative was that Seven licked Cecilia’s sweat in the first part of the book and then eventually consumed a speck of Cecilia’s shit towards the end of it. Perhaps a commentary about the repulsiveness of an all-consuming, unrequited sapphic love? Even Seven’s realisation that they might be the prey falls flat. The story is in Seven’s focalisation, so the reader recognises that there is a naiveté in them that is particularly un-predator-like, and very little resistance or interrogation opposed what Cecilia says and does.

But despite this less-than-positive introduction to Chang’s written work, I’m still keen to read more of her.

Gabe Tejada is a Filipino reader and writer based in Naarm. Her work has been published by Archer Magazine online and Kill Your Darlings (KYD), among others. You can find her reading queer books on the 58 tram, going for aimless walks, and eating camembert stuffed croissants.

How It Works Out
Myriam Lacroix
The Overlook Press, 2024, 240 pages
$27.00

Reviewed by Pelaya Arapakis

Myriam Lacroix’s exhilarating debut novel How It Works Out follows a sapphic love story spanning a series of alternate realities. At the centre of the novel are Myriam and Allison—two lovers who meet at a show in a run-down punk house in Vancouver. How It Works Out is guided by the question of “what if?” catapulting protagonists into a range of radically different hypothetical scenarios that present various outcomes to their relationship. With each chapter, a new setting is imagined. What if Myriam and Allison discovered an abandoned baby in an alley, named him Jonah, and raised him as their own? What if the only way to treat Myriam’s depression was cannibalism? What if Myriam and Allison were a dog and praying mantis who fell in love? What if the pair became a micro-celebrity couple after releasing a self-help book on lesbian relationships?

A work of autofiction, How It Works Out blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy. We bear witness to love blossoming and waning, moving through the rose-tinted, dream-like highs of early romance to the various states of relationship decay. As the novel progresses, scenarios become marked by a pervasive darkness that coincides with the gradual unravelling of the relationship. Throughout it all, Lacroix anchors us with her precise and lyrical prose that testifies to her literary origins as a poet.

In and amongst the satirically absurd backdrops is a striking vulnerability as the characters excavate their interior and exterior worlds in the search for clarity, emotional truth, and authenticity. In the chapter “How It Works Out,” Myriam confides in an ex-partner, “I love Allison…I want us to be right for each other” (70). Her heart-rending admission recalls an often difficult truth: love and compatibility are not always in harmony. These moments of fragility are again echoed in “Anthropocene,” where Myriam—addressing Allison—delivers the achingly omniscient line, “How many times do I have to let you go?” (190).

How It Works Out is an intoxicating and visceral journey filled with queer possibility, offering readers a surreal, witty, and poignant tapestry of the potentialities and pitfalls of love. It is a love story that is as unique as it is unforgettable.

Pelaya Arapakis (she/her) is a Sinister Wisdom intern based in Naarm/Melbourne. She is also a musician, cultural worker and freelance writer.

Pariah, 2011, 1h 27m
Directed by Dee Rees

Reviewed by Iam Monroe

Studhood is something scarcely depicted in lesbian media, let alone depicted in media that explores the personal relationships of studs. Pariah is a true rarity in its portrayal of the turbulent, tender, and othering experiences and relationships that characterize coming of age as a young Black stud. While similar to butch identity, in regards to being a subculture of the broader lesbian community with a primary element of masculinity, stud identity differs by being exclusive to and influenced by Black American cultures.

The film follows Alike (Adepero Oduye), a shy, sensitive seventeen-year-old high school stud and aspiring poet living in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with her mother (Kim Wayans), father (Charles Parnell), and younger sister (Sahra Mellesse). Alike is not out to her family, so she lives a “double life,” donning her desired masc get-ups outside of the house while remaining closeted at home. While Alike has a close friend and confidant in Laura (Pernell Walker), a fellow and more experienced Black stud, her mother disapproves of her company and forces Alike to begrudgingly befriend Bina (Aasha Davis), the daughter of her coworker, instead.

Despite their differences and initial reluctance, Alike falls hard for Bina. Their arranged meetups become enjoyable hangouts as they bond over similar alternative rock tastes. Alike forms the impression that what they have is real and mutual. But Bina, unlike Alike, still has hang-ups about her sexual orientation. “I’m not like, gay gay,” she says to her the morning after they spend the night together. Alike is crushed, and rightfully so. The first person she develops a genuine romantic and sexual connection with has easily shrugged off her feelings. Even when Alike visibly looks hurt, the only words Bina offers as comfort are, “You don’t have to tell anybody, okay?” More concerned with the possibility of sullying her reputation, she leaves Alike to bear the brewing storm of heartbreak alone. Granted, Bina is a young teenager who is still figuring things out, but so is Alike in her search for love and acceptance. Coming out is not easy for young Black girls, but in contrast to Bina, Alike has already decided that she wants to be true to herself. Soon after coming home, she comes out to her mother, solidifying her place in the world as a stud at the cost of losing her place in the family. Alike and Bina are in different stages of their journeys, which leads to their unfortunate end.

Pariah is a word meaning “a person without status,” “a rejected member of society,” or “an outcast.” Alike is made a pariah through the multiple facets of oppression she experiences as a Black masculine lesbian. The intersection of being Black, a woman, and a lesbian subjects her to mistreatment from her mother, followed by the eventual removal from her family, alienation from her community and peers, and the necessity to assimilate for survival. Laura, like Alike, is a pariah. Though much of her personal life isn’t explicitly explored, we know she is turned away from her household (presumably because of her sexuality), has dropped out of high school, and now lives with her sister, Candy, while working at a restaurant to pay the bills. Estrangement from families is not an uncommon reality for Black lesbians. Black families already carry generational trauma and a lack of generational wealth, so the traumatic violence of being removed from one's blood family only compounds those struggles. Even though Alike’s family is well off, her sexuality puts her at risk of losing support. Pariahs constantly face a harsher world.

In light of this reality, this movie profoundly shows the beautiful, mutual understanding between these two studs–these two pariahs. When Alike leaves home after being viciously attacked by her mother for coming out, it is Laura who saves her. Laura, who has gone through the same experience, is the one to comfort Alike and soothe her at her lowest. Laura cradles Alike’s head in her lap, one hand caressing her braids, the other downing a bottle of alcohol. Unlike Bina, she is the friend who sees, knows, feels, and understands Alike’s pain, even if they, too, have their differences. Alike’s peers note that she is not as typically “hard” as other studs, especially in comparison to Laura, but Laura loves and helps her all the same, and Alike’s expression, poetic aspirations, and sensitive nature do not make her any less of a stud. As Alike says when facing her mother, “There’s nothing wrong with me!”

Iam Monroe (they/them) is a writer, reader, digital artist, and Sinister Wisdom intern currently residing in Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas.

Difficult Beauty: Rambles, Rants and Intimate Conversations
Lauren Crux
Many Names Press, 2023, 166 pages
$25.00

Reviewed by Marilyn DuHamel

Lauren Crux, a Santa Cruz, California writer and photographer, has recently published a stunning, singular book titled Difficult Beauty: Rambles, Rants and Intimate Conversations. Through the years, I’ve been in awe of her many talents: writer, poet, photographer, and performer.

Lauren’s book came out during a very busy time in my life, but once I had it in my hands, I had to take a peek. Soon, I was reading page after page after page and found myself—sometimes in the course of a single page—chortling, tearing up, raising my eyebrows, putting my hand on my heart, or pausing as I gazed upwards, savoring an unexpected insight. Finally, I had to wrench myself away because I wanted to sink into each ramble. The book is that compelling.

Yet, describing this collection is a challenge because it defies categorization, which is part of what I love about it. I turn to the words of another wonderful writer, Camille T. Dungy, who manages to capture the book’s essence:

“The language here is sheer poetry, but these are not meant to be read as poems. They are tiny letters, photographs, journal entries, “rants and intimate conversations,” all of these together and more. On each candid page, Crux reveals what she sees, how she feels, how she hurts, how she celebrates” (Dungy, October 2021).

The work also has an equally important visual element: each short writing is paired with one of Lauren’s original abstract photographs. She stresses that the images are meant to be in conversation with the writing, not to illustrate it. In the words of the poet Gary Young, “[these are] photographs that neither illustrate, nor make any suggestion as to how the poems should be read—are simply companions on the journey of this moving collection” (Young, October 2021).

Lauren’s style is pithy, provocative, and poignant. It’s funny, irreverent, and heartbreaking. Exploring moments and intervals on either side of the rush, rush, rush of daily life, she claims her ordinariness without fuss. “You know, sometimes it feels good to get out and be a lesbian. And sometimes, it feels equally good to stay at home and be a lesbian” (Ramble #34).

She takes on many topics, ranging from the commonplace (and sometimes goofy) moments of daily life to the times that stun us into silence or fury. For example, when the cancer doctor says to her lover, “If you are done with your breasts have a mastectomy,” (Ramble #47), we not only register horror, but we laugh and cry in these moments. She describes her own sense of momentary helplessness and despair in the face of contemporary geopolitical trauma—“I feel scraped raw” (Ramble #22).

With a humorous and witty gentle touch, Lauren asks us to hold fire and ice simultaneously; she insists on complexity of existence, because, “The heart will understand” (“Life Review,” following Ramble #64).

Lastly, when I have traveled in the past, I never can manage to avoid checking a bag, in part because I take too many books. On this last trip, I was determined to just take a carry-on. I winnowed down my clothing, tossed out the third pair of shoes, and took only one book. Difficult Beauty is what made the cut. Like a well-chosen shirt or pair of pants that work for any occasion, I knew this book would take care of me, whatever my mood, whatever my needs.

Marilyn DuHamel is drawn to wilderness—internal and external—and has worked in forestry and fire look-out towers, then as a psychotherapist for the last three decades. Moved by her experiences of call and response with the more-than-human world, her current book project and her blog, Earth Dialogues, explore connections with the natural world and archetypal realms of dreams and synchronicities. Her writing has appeared in Kosmos Journal, Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, the anthology Second Wind, and blog postings for Native Animal Rescue. She lives outside of Santa Cruz, California, surrounded by old-growth chaparral.