City of Laughter
Temim Fruchter
Grove Atlantic, 2024, 384 pages
$27.00

Reviewed by Catherine Horowitz

What a strange coincidence it was that I, a queer Jew from Silver Spring, Maryland, who has lost my father, ended up unknowingly reviewing a book whose main character shares the same experiences. And yet, after reading Temim Fruchter’s City of Laughter, which encourages us to read things as fate, to insist on prescribing deeper meanings, I suppose I should consider that it wasn’t a coincidence at all.

In her moving, thought-provoking debut novel, Fruchter explores ideas of storytelling, intergenerational identity, and memory. City of Laughter primarily follows Shiva, a student who embarks on a quest to uncover the mysteries of her family that her mother, Hannah, seldom talks about. Newly recovering from both a breakup and her father’s death, Shiva’s research on her family and a web of Jewish folklorists takes her across the world and through time.

City of Laughter is told through many loose threads: four different generations of a family, all exploring their own questions of personal and familial identity. Hannah grapples with her strained relationship with her mother. Hannah’s mother has a collection of mysterious notes and is superstitious and distant. Her grandmother lives in a village in Poland, is deemed cursed, and attempts to understand the strange forces within herself. All are haunted by an immortal, ghostly being who seems to hold the answers they search for, but whom they can never truly wrap their minds around.

There is no real moment of tying all these threads together or of resolving all the narrative’s major questions; often it feels like when one is resolved, another is created. Instead of solutions, Fruchter leaves each character with more possibilities and unanswered questions. City of Laughter encourages lingering in these threads, in open questions, and embracing the fact that they may never be fully answered.

Much of City of Laughter is about Shiva’s research on S. An-sky, a twentieth-century folklorist best known for his play The Dybbuk. Shiva becomes fascinated by An-sky’s ethnographic survey about Jewish daily life in the Pale of Settlement. Although the survey has no answers, its questions speak for themselves, asking about specific rituals, customs, and folklore. It’s these unanswered questions that Shiva decides to focus on; instead of searching for neat conclusions in her research, she embraces the inevitable gaps and uncertainty in the pieces of history that we can access, which, in her words, “necessitate invention.”

In addition to following the story of Shiva’s family, City of Laughter is a collection of real and invented folktales, superstitions, and mythology, complementing the bits and pieces of history Shiva begins piecing together. Some stories have full arcs and tie thematically into the rest of the book. Some are incomplete stories with no resolution. Some even feel random, placed as interludes to the narrative without an obvious parallel. These stories intertwine with letters, memories, and past and present scenes from characters’ lives, all woven together into a sweeping tapestry.

City of Laughter is also a truthful, sincere exploration of identity. Shiva’s exploration of queerness goes hand in hand with her exploration of family history. To Shiva, both studies represent a potential for personal clarity and discovering underlying truths about herself. Fruchter discusses the process of forging a relationship to queerness, of feeling simultaneously out of place and at home in queer communities, of finding the words, the places, the ways of presenting yourself that make you feel most grounded, with an honesty and specificity unique to someone who personally understands this experience. Shiva treats queerness as an ongoing process, similar to her research on her family—something she will continue to investigate and grow into.

Shiva explores intergenerational queerness as well, wondering whether it is something she shares with her ancestors and the subjects of her research. She first looks for conclusive proof, jumping at small indications, but in the final stretches of the book interprets the loose ends in her family and An-sky as their own kind of queerness:

“Some part of her wanted to face S. An-sky himself more than anything, to take him by the shoulders, to ask, Well, were you? But queerness laughed in the face of proof. Queerness was not about a body of evidence but about layers of presence; a cumulative kind of hereness, insistent and glittering. A vertical line, even, lives and lives stacked on top of lives. Renegade desire that left no evidence behind; only a kind of residue that flickered in its wake.”

Ultimately, City of Laughter is not just a poignant exploration of personal identity and family; it is meticulous and thoroughly researched, sometimes feeling like an entire academic thesis told through fiction. It includes painstaking details about Shiva’s research and ultimately functions as a real collection of research on Jewish history and folklore, offering an entire framework on approaching historical queerness that intertwines with the lives and stories of Shiva’s family.

It is hard to truly pull off a sweeping epic like this one, but Fruchter’s debut novel is continuously riveting, insightful, and poignant, leaving readers all at once satisfied and curious about what the future holds.

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.

The Women of NOW: How Feminists Built an Organization that Transformed America
Katherine Turk
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023, 448 pages
$32.00

Reviewed by Henri Bensussen

A passionate feminist, a supporter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), and a teacher of women’s history, Katherine Turk’s purpose in The Women of NOW is to clarify NOW’s founding and accomplishments. Accessible language and dramatic narrative were a plus for this reader. She’s done a lot of research, all of it cited in the last section of the book; readers may easily engage further if desired.

Scholars have taken two ways of writing about NOW, she states, either focusing on the motivations of its founding leadership or pieces of its overall history. Instead, Turk gives an overall picture of NOW’s structure by showing how the points of view of three of the early founders led to the organization’s weaknesses and strengths. Below are the early founders Turk discusses.

Aileen Hernandez (1926-2017), a feminist labor organizer, was aware of the effects of racism and sexism in our culture. She wanted NOW’s leadership to focus on problems specific to women of color and work with men to achieve feminist goals. Hernandez would become NOW’s second president. Her interests were always in the wider political concerns of the labor movement.

Patricia Hill Burnett (1920-2014), mother of four children, and married to a wealthy businessman who supported her feminism, hoped to diversify NOW’s politics and extend its appeal internationally. As a Republican, she supported her party’s support for the individual and wanted to broaden that to incorporate feminist principles.

Mary Jean Collins (1939- ), a generation younger than Hernandez and Burnett, brought a different outlook to NOW. Active in the Democratic party, she lived in Chicago and helped establish many chapters, especially in the Midwest. Collins served as a vice president of NOW in the early 1980s.

Betty Friedan, a labor journalist familiar with politics, became a celebrity upon publishing The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Pauli Murray, a Black organizer and attorney, represented Black women activists who felt Friedan’s influence and leadership could be used to support the civil rights of women of color. Together, they conceived of establishing a new organization to support their ideas. In June of 1966, Friedan and Murray decided to test their idea at the third annual gathering of State Commissions on the Status of Women in Washington, D.C., which many women activists would be attending.

Following the Commission’s last evening, Pauli and Friedan held a late-night party for some of the women attendees. Many more showed up after hearing about it. When their plan was explained to the group, an emotional discussion followed that lasted until two in the morning. Was one more women’s organization needed? It turned out that women did need it and wanted it. A sign-up sheet went around at the Commission’s last session later that morning. Dues were set at $5. Twenty-eight women signed up, becoming known as “the founders.” Not everyone had $5 for the dues, and financing NOW’s issues would become another problem as the organization grew.

NOW rapidly grew into hundreds of chapters and thousands of members. There was direction from the top, but chapters were also independent and could set their own agendas with little oversight from NOW’s board. Turk highlights this freedom and lack of organizational direction as a weakness. Another was a focus on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The elderly women who had marched for women’s right to vote supported the ERA and showed up at NOW’s first convention with demands for it, turning the members’ attention from civil rights to equal rights.

Murray’s hopes for more Black women members did not materialize, though they and/or their daughters went on to organize in different ways. The concept of intersectionality was not understood or acted on by NOW’s leadership of mostly white, middle-class women. For years there was barely a budget, no office staff, and little money. Read this fascinating book to learn about the controversies that NOW became known for, how they were settled, the history of the women who directed it, and how they did it. NOW is still a vibrant organization with 600 chapters and thousands of members. They are still fighting for the ERA and abortion rights, as they were back in the 1970s-80s.

Henri Bensussen (she/her) earned a B.A. in Biology at UC Santa Cruz. Her essays, poems, and short stories have been published in various journals and anthologies. Her mother tagged her as a bookworm and tomboy. She’s a lesbian feminist as defined in Lesbian Connection’s May/June 2024 issue.

Ella Stern Interviews Penny Mickelbury
Part One: Politics and the World Today

Ella Stern: Can you start by giving me a rundown of what your career has been like, both in journalism and out?

Penny Mickelbury: I wanted to be a reporter since I was very young and recognized the impact that newspapers had on my parents. I grew up in Atlanta in the bad old days. And the editor and publisher of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Eugene Patterson and Ralph McGill, started writing in the 1950s, saying to Southerners that, “We have to change, we have to stop. We cannot continue the way we’ve been going.”

And morning and evening, before anything, [my parents said], “Let’s see what McGill and Patterson have to say today.” I [thought], “Wow, I want to do that. I want to be able to have a positive impact on people’s lives.” As a child, I didn’t fully understand the danger that they were putting themselves in because they were saying to white Southerners in the ’50s, “You guys gotta cut this crap out. We’ve got to stop it. We can’t keep treating people like this. We can’t keep living like this.” And it was not well-received any more than it’s well-received today.

But I wanted to do that. I thought that that was just about the best thing that a person could do. In Atlanta, there was a Black daily, the Atlanta Daily World. And then there were two weeklies. That was at a time when most cities had two newspapers: a morning and an evening daily. And people subscribed to them. Now, we have no newspapers in the country. [In high school] I knew the editor of one of the weeklies, and I asked him if I could work there, and he said sure. So [in the] summers, I went to work there. I thought I was going to be writing, but no, I was learning layout. I taught journalism at a middle school in Los Angeles many years later, and I was able to teach layout to the students because it makes a difference where you place a story.

I was the first Black reporter at the Athens Banner-Herald [in] Athens, Georgia. [Earlier,] I had applied for a job there, and the publisher didn’t hesitate to tell me, “No, you can’t be a reporter here.” So, I got a job overnight copy editing and rewriting during my senior year. And then, the guy called me into his office one day. He said, “Okay, you can have a job as a reporter now.” And I said, “Really? Why?” Students were demonstrating. There was a lot of demonstrating going on, and I used to participate until I started working. He said, “They said they’re going to burn down my newspaper if I don’t have a Black reporter, and you’re the only one I know.” And that’s how I got a job as the first Black reporter at the Athens Banner-Herald.

And then, after almost a year of doing that, I got a call from the Washington Post. Eugene Patterson had been following my career. And he said, “You want a job at the Washington Post?” Well, hell yeah, I want a job at the Washington Post!

So that’s how I got to the Post. Just from knowing from my parents’ reactions to what these men were saying and the changes that were beginning to be fomented in the South then, [I knew] that I wanted to be able to have that kind of impact on everything, everybody—righting wrongs. Journalism to me was a place to right wrongs.

I look at journalism now, and I don’t recognize it as the same profession that I worked at. But we took that stuff seriously. The Fourth Estate is given protections under the Constitution. So I think we have an obligation to that. Now, you got members of Congress and on the Supreme Court who don’t know what the Constitution is. They don’t know what it says. And they certainly don’t take seriously the oath that they rose their hands and swore to uphold, to protect and defend the Constitution. They don’t even know what that means. But we took that stuff seriously.

Ella: What has it been like for you to see how much journalism has changed and declined in the decades since you were working as a journalist?

Penny: Painful. It’s painful. I have just resumed trying to watch the news. I recently canceled my subscription to the New York Times—and I’ve been a subscriber for over 50 years—because they have normalized the behavior of that fool who was the former president and all his sycophants. And I was on the verge of canceling my subscription to the Washington Post. But lately, it seems like they’ve grown a pair. I’ve been reading some stories, and it’s like, “Wow, is somebody really paying attention?” And so they really seem to be. I read the LA Times, but then the LA Times just fired all of its Black and brown reporters, so I don’t know how much longer I’m going to keep that up. I am horrified, I am terrified because a country where the press doesn’t respect what it means to have the power and the authority that the press has frightens me because who’s going to tell us what we need to know if it’s not the Fourth Estate? Yeah, I’m scared. I’m really scared.

PBS is about the only news that I can listen to on a regular basis and get some truth, some understanding of what’s going on. There’s a part of me that is glad I’m old. I’m glad that I don’t have to live through another 15 or 20 years of this. I’m not trying to die, mind you, but I’ve been here longer than I will continue to be here. And if this country keeps going the way it’s going, I can say I won’t cry when I have to leave here.

Ella: What have been some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen over your lifetime? In politics, in human rights, in anything?

Penny: The biggest change is in people’s willingness to ignore the truth. I don’t think that, even in the middle of the civil rights movement, the most virulent racist would have said, “Oh, well, that didn’t happen to them. There was no slavery.” They knew it happened. Their parents were there. Their parents were the slave owners. They would never have tried to say it didn’t happen. And now you have this rewriting of fact, of truth. You have people banning books from libraries. My mother was a librarian, and I am truly glad that she did not live to see this. It’s something I never would have thought possible. How do you ban a book? And not just a book, but a whole collection of books? You don’t like what they say, so [you say] we’re not going to teach it. Or, “My kid didn’t like this book because it made him ashamed to be white.” That really ranks among the stupidest things I’ve ever heard in my life. “It made him ashamed to be white.” No it didn’t. It may have made him think, “Oh my goodness. Do my people really do this?” Yes, son, they do. But you can stop it. You can make sure they don’t.

And I think we all have those things happen to us. We were just listening to whatever happened in the Super Bowl in Kansas City. And they have arrested some people. I would be willing to accept somebody saying they were probably Black. They probably were. And that hurts me to my heart. But I would never say, “Oh no, they weren’t Black.” Sure they were. I don’t like that that’s the truth. And I don’t like what is happening to young Black men in America. And it needs to stop. But to say that, “Oh, well, they’re not doing these things.” Yeah, they are. Somebody’s sons and grandsons who look like me are doing these things, and we gotta stop it.

Those are the things that upset me, that make me not feel so good, and that have me questioning really and truly what I do next. I’m going to keep writing books, but I want to feel like I’m doing something useful in my community. And I don’t know what that is. I don’t know at this point, and I’ve been discussing it with friends, all of us of a certain age. And I don’t have the answer. And if you have any thoughts, I’m happy to hear them.

Ella: What are some of the things you’ve talked about with your friends about what you can do and what you can’t do?

Penny: Well, one of my dearest friends [suggested having] Black history taught from Black churches? Because nobody can go into a Black church and go, “Oh, you can’t teach Black history.” They sure can. Try to stop them. I think that is as good an idea as I’ve heard. Now, we’ve got to figure out how to implement it. And you start with one church at a time, but you start with the churches that have been on the forefront. For instance, Abyssinian Baptist Church or Ebenezer—that’s in New York, that was Adam Clayton Powell’s church. Martin Luther King’s church in Atlanta. These places where the ministers made a difference. Teach Black history, and goodness knows there are enough teachers who will go in and teach those things and teach children. And all of these books that have been banned? Let’s go get them and let’s make them available in the Black churches. Nobody can tell them, “Oh, well, you can’t have any gay books in there.” Sure they can. They can do anything they want to do. And people can teach children what these things mean. Because there are gay people everywhere, and it ain’t a shock or a surprise, and it shouldn’t be. And if you don’t know any, you just think you don’t, maybe, you probably do. But [we need to teach children] how you interact with people. And you don’t call people names. No matter what the name is, whether it’s a racial or sexual epithet, you don’t talk to people that way. And that’s one of the best ideas I’ve heard. I don’t know how to make it happen, but I talk to people about it. I’ve mentioned it to several people, and everybody says, “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea. How do we do it?” I don’t know. So, Ella, if you got a thought about how we do this, I’m all ears.

Ella: I agree that it’s a great idea. And it seems, like you said, like something that would have to be each church at a time, but it seems like something where if you went and talked to a church in your community, then they would probably be able to pass it on among other churches that they’re affiliated with.

Penny: A church at a time. And maybe you pick a couple of cities. Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City, Atlanta, where there are these very strong Black communities. And then, get entertainers involved because the civil rights movement was full of entertainers, singers, and writers, and people listened to them. Can you imagine if Beyoncé said, “Okay, I’m going to give a concert at Ebenezer Baptist Church,”—you wouldn't be able to get down the block. Because it's Beyoncé! I don’t know what she knows about history, but she could certainly be an advocate. Or whoever the hip-hop people are. You know, you get people involved.

Ella: Yeah, absolutely.


Part Two: Gay Rights, Writing, and Sinister Wisdom

Ella Stern: You talked a little bit about the banning of gay books. Can you talk to me about how you’ve seen queer rights change throughout your lifetime and where you think things are going in terms of queer rights?

Penny Mickelbury: Well, let’s start from the fact that when I was your age, we didn’t have any rights. And you did well to keep your sexual preferences and orientations to yourself. You could lose your job. Not “could”—you would lose your job, get kicked out of school. Some kids—and more than a few—got kicked out of their homes. There were no rights.

And there certainly weren’t any books. And I think that’s one of the most important differences. There was no place to learn about who you were. I knew I liked girls, but there was nobody to tell it to. Until, as I got older and left Atlanta and moved to Washington, I met other women like myself. But it was still just this small group of people. And it was to our advantage to keep that information to ourselves because we could all lose our jobs. We’d all be fired and there was nobody to talk to. There was no information.

And then, I learned about Lammas bookstore. The women’s bookstore; it was on Capitol Hill at that time. And I was sort of intimidated and afraid to go in there. I mean, I loved bookstores and I loved books, but how do I ask them, “Where are the books for those of us who love women?” Well, half the books in that store were books [for those of us who love women]. And the women who owned and ran the store offered information and help. I was out of college, I was working, and that was the first time I knew that there was a place to go.

And it has evolved to what we have now. Now, you say “LBGTQA” and some other stuff, [but] we didn’t know all that stuff. There were boys, and there were girls. And then there was another category, and we all knew who these people were, who were what we would now call transgender. We didn’t have a name [for that back then]. They just were as they were. And some of us were part of a social network that included those people, and some of us knew that there were places where they absolutely were not included or tolerated. And so we had our own discrimination within our own group. There were people that we discriminated against because they weren’t—and this is going to sound weird—they weren’t normal. What was normal? We’re not normal to most people. I mean, [are you] going to go to your job and go, “Oh, excuse me, would you like to meet my girlfriend?” I don’t think so. “Can I bring my girlfriend to the office Christmas party?” I don’t think so.

And so the change that exists now, we never could have imagined. We never could have imagined being able to be open and accepted in many places. Elected officials, gay judges and lawyers—what? We never would have [imagined] it. And being called, being able to say “queer” without it being a provocation, without it being a slam. You didn’t call anybody queer, you know? But within our community, we appropriated that term. I personally don’t like it for myself. I am a lesbian. But I’m not going to get mad at somebody because he says, “Okay, you go here with the queer people.” Okay, if I must, I will, but I’d much rather be where the girls are, you know, where are all the women? That’s where I want to be.

Ella: And what do you think are some of the most important things for society to keep doing in terms of gay rights? What are the places where we most need improvement?

Penny: Well, people have got to stand up en masse against this book-banning crap. And people have to not be afraid to normalize those people in their communities who are same-gender loving. Nobody said you had to be gay. You don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything. But you can’t stop me. And that’s what I think needs to happen: people need to stop being afraid, stop worrying about what somebody else thinks.

And this whole evangelical crap is just another way of giving people permission to discriminate against everybody—and they hate everybody. People need to start standing up [against] that. We [need to be] saying, “No. Not where I live. Not on my watch. No, I do not accept your position on this.” You can believe what you like, but you don’t have the right to inflict it on other people. I don’t care where you go to church, but you don’t get to preach your thing as a blanket, “This is the way because God said.” To whom? God told you of all the people God could tell something to? I don’t think so. Whatever God you believe in, she didn’t tell you. There were some other people she might have told, but not you. Everybody says we can’t criticize it. [But] we can, and we must. We’ve got to stop letting people get away with that crap. Because then it becomes normal. It’s the same thing as Trump and those fools. We have normalized this evangelical whatever-they-are. Ain’t nothing normal about that. What you believe is your business; I don’t want to hear it. I’m not trying to convert you to Buddhism. I'm a Buddhist, but that ain’t nobody’s business but mine. I’m not trying to convert you.

Ella: Yeah, absolutely. People who are using their religion to hate others are not using it right.

Penny: Absolutely. And there’s nothing normal about that. Why is religion in this conversation anyway?

Ella: Exactly. And you talked about the importance of fighting against the banning of LGBTQ+ books. Especially given that, how does it feel to be working on this Lesbian Stories edition of Sinister Wisdom?

Penny: There are times when I feel a little bit out of my element because all of these wonderful women that I’m working with have tremendous experience as editors. I’m comfortable holding my own among writers, but I’m not an editor. However, I can say that I have been edited by some of the best, so I know what it’s supposed to look like. Katherine Forrest was my first editor, and I am never too far away from her advice. And the editor that I have now at Bywater, Fay Jacobs—I would walk to Delaware [where she lives] if she said, “Look, we need to have a meeting, and I need for you to walk here.” That is how unwavering I am in my belief in her ability. She does what a good editor is supposed to do, which is help a writer make a better book. And I have Rachel and Katherine and Judith to guide me along the way if I feel like I’m out of my element. I am very, very happy to be a part of this effort.

Ella: This issue of Sinister Wisdom centers on how lesbians of different ages are building off of each other’s work and stories. How do you feel about that? What excites you about it?

Penny: I think it’s brilliant because that may be the best way, maybe even the only way, for me to access young lesbian writers. I don’t know any. And I certainly am not likely to encounter them in a social setting. We don’t hang out with the same people, not because we don’t like the same people, but they don’t hang out with people my age, and I don’t hang out with people your age. Even my nieces are older than you are. And the great-nieces are too young to be hanging out with anybody right now. And I think I can speak for my contemporaries [in that we would love to be introduced to and meet with young women writers.]

I’m excited about being able to read the writings [in Sinister Wisdom]. I want to know what [young writers] are thinking, if it’s any different than what I thought in my 20s. I’d love to be able to communicate with them, but in this format, most of my communicating will be with Catherine and Judith and Rachel because we will be talking about the work and what it’s saying. I have no idea what to expect. But I’m open to it, as are we all. We’re all of a different generation, but we love writing. And we were once 20- and 30-something, so we know how it felt to have somebody’s eyes on your work and [be] waiting for the judgment. I don’t think any of us have gotten so old that we have forgotten that, you know?

Ella: Yeah. And people of my generation don’t [often] get to talk to any older gay people, so it’s always really special to be able to do that and thank your generation for everything you did that gets us what we have today. I think there’s not nearly enough intergenerational communication about that sort of thing.

Penny: There isn’t. And I love hearing that from you. And I’m going to speak for myself, but I think I can also speak for Catherine and Judith: reach out. You know how to find us. And then ask us who else we know. “I know you know some more writers. Introduce me to some.” Happy to do that. Because it’s important for us to know that all that stuff, all those years, didn’t just vanish, evaporate. That people still read it, that young people are still reading and going, “Wow, that’s a pretty good story. Even if it is written by somebody older than my grandmother, [it’s] still a pretty good story.” So reach out, talk to us, let us know what you need to know.

Ella: That’s awesome. And one last conversation topic before we wrap up: can you tell me more about your career writing books? I feel like we’ve been circling around it this whole time.

Penny: Oh, my. My career writing books. I left journalism because it had become the news business and not the profession of journalism. Well, that ain’t what I signed up for. But writing has always been a part of my life. I mean, I’ve always written, always. So I’m going to try to write a book. And a friend of mine said to me, “Well, write a mystery because you read them all the time.” And I did. My parents read mysteries; I’ve been reading mysteries since I [was young]. So I said okay. And the first lesbian mystery I read was a Katherine Forrest book. I didn’t know lesbians wrote mysteries. And [from] the women’s bookstore in Westwood [called Sisterhood], [I] got a bunch of books by lesbians. I was like, “Holy crap. I didn’t know this existed.” And I have been at it ever since.

I've got 15 or 16 novels published, most of them lesbian-focused and lesbian-centered. But I know I am not everybody’s cup of tea. I don’t write romances, and I don’t write the easy way out because life just ain’t that easy for so many people. And people have told me they don’t want to talk [or hear] about this stuff. Okay. But it’s what I write. I was talking to a friend recently who was being published by one of the big lesbian presses that wrote a lot of romances, but she couldn’t get her book published because she was told—by the editor—that nobody wanted to read about young Black girls finding themselves as lesbians, as youngsters. And it didn’t bother her to say that to a Black writer. Well, there are lots of people who want to read about this.

I love writing it; I love reading it. When I used to teach, I loved teaching it. And I’m always on the lookout for a good writer. It’s like, “Where’s this story that I haven’t read, for somebody to give me?” That’s one of the reasons I’m really looking forward to this process. What are young people thinking about? What do you think about? What do you want to write about? And, [I know this] because I do it, you write about stuff you’d like to read about. So I’m looking forward to it.

Ella: Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Penny: I really do hope that you and the other young people in this program will reach out to us, that you will access us when you think we can be helpful. As I said before, I think I can speak for Catherine and Judith—and Rachel, although Rachel sees you guys on a regular basis because she teaches you—[in saying that] we not only want to hear from you, we need to hear from you. Most of us don’t have children and grandchildren. Unless we teach, we have no idea what you all are thinking, or what you’re feeling, or what you’re reading, or what you think about what we write. I’d love to know what you think about what I write. The issues that I write about [are faced by] everybody in this society. But if you’re not feeling represented, I’d love to know that. I really would. And tell your friends. If I’ve written a book and there’s a young person [in it] and you think I don’t know anybody who acts like this, please tell me. I’d like to know. I appreciate the opportunity to interact with young people and I miss being able to do it. I used to teach, [but] I don’t do that anymore. So I’d love to have the experience.

Ella: I’m hoping to read some of your books because I’ve been looking for more mysteries to read, so what better place to start?

Penny: Okay, well, mysteries I write, and historical fiction. That’s what I do now, is historical. So please read them, and let me know.

Ella: Awesome. I will. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been incredible to talk to you.

Penny: You’re very welcome. And please feel free to reach out anytime.

Ella: I will.

Ella Stern conducted this interview on February 14, 2024.


Penny Mickelbury is the author of 15 novels, a collection of short stories, and a contributor to half a dozen short story collections. She is a Lammy and Goldie finalist. She is the 2020 recipient of the Alice B Medal. She was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2019.

Ella Stern (she/her) is a first-year student at Macalester College in St. Paul. She is interning for the upcoming “Lesbian Stories” issue of Sinister Wisdom. Ella loves writing, interviewing, intergenerational communication, and lesbians, and she has loved incorporating all of these into this project.

Mikayla Hamilton Interviews Ben Negin (Benadryl)


Q: How did the Boone Barbies come to be?

A: The Boone Barbies was founded in November 2021 after Molly Pocket and Benadryl met at SAGA’s [Appalachian State University’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance] amateur drag show. We were both new to drag at the time and quickly fell in love with the art form. However, there were not many drag opportunities or events in town at the time, so we founded the group to bring more drag to the area. We’ve since put on over 50 shows and have been able to work with so many amazing performers. Our first show ever was at Lily’s Snack Bar, which continues to be our central venue. However, we have also performed at Legends, App Theatre, Coyote Kitchen, Lost Province, Bayou Smokehouse, Wildwood Community Market, with various grounds on campus, Boone and Greensboro Pride, and many more!


Q: What drives you to perform?

A: I am driven to perform because it serves as an outlet for creativity, expression, activism, and emotions. In terms of creativity, I love dyeing and styling my own wigs, making most of my own outfits, painting unique makeup looks, and putting together my numbers. When it comes to expression, when I am able to perform in drag, I am at my purest and fullest level of self-expression. When I am in drag, it feels like I am showing who I am to the fullest extent. I also use drag as activism. Money is donated from as many shows as possible, our social media accounts are used to promote civic engagement, and my performances often hold a political message as well. I combine my drag activism with other activism, such as working with App State admin on policy issues. For example, through my student activism, I worked to change the App Card policy to allow people’s correct names to be displayed and then raised money for students to get a new card for free at a show. Lastly, I bring what I am going through at the time into my performance. Whether going through a breakup or celebrating a law school acceptance, it is all on the table when I perform.


Q: What would you say is the goal of the Boone Barbies?

A: The goal of the Boone Barbies is to create queer spaces for performers and audience members alike. To give opportunities to drag performers and make sure that they are paid for their work and their art. To raise money for charity and raise awareness of political issues. To build community centered around love for all. Molly Pocket and I are both moving this summer, so we also are aiming to leave the Boone Barbies behind to the next generation, so drag will stick around in Boone forever.





Q: Have any of you grown up in the South? If so, would you say that the social environment of the region had an effect on your self-discovery? If not, does working or living in the social environment of the region have an effect on you?

A: I was born in New Jersey but moved to Greensboro, NC, when I was 3. I then moved to Boone for college when I was 19. Growing up mostly in the South has definitely had an impact on my self-discovery. From HB2 to the current anti-LGBTQIA+ pieces of legislation, it is hard to be yourself, let alone be yourself in drag on a big stage. Other things that come along with the South are being harassed verbally and physically for being queer, facing discrimination at work and in school, and being told over and over again who you are and that who you are is bad. Overall, the main impact that all of this has is a growing trauma that accumulates over time. I often feel defeated that when all we do is work hard and strive to be the best people we can be, it can be reduced to hatred so quickly. However, I also take it as a motivator to never stop and to make sure that I prove myself against these small-minded people.


Q: The South definitely has a reputation, and rightfully so, of being not very inclusive of the queer community. Can you speak on the importance of safe spaces for the queer community in areas like Boone?

A: It is important to have queer spaces in Boone in order to combat the anti-LGBTQIA+ actions that are all around us, like water. It can serve as an escape from that. Queer spaces are also very important to have in Boone in the sense that it is a large college town. For many young queer people, it is their first time away from a dangerous home life. For these people to have something like a drag show to come to, it sends the message that they are going to be okay. That in the life they now get to build for themselves, there is going to be a space that is safe and fun and accepting for them. Queer spaces can be the first time in people’s lives that who they are is not taken as a negative thing.


Q: What are some positive changes you have seen in the community as a result of the work you do?

A: The queer community, and its allies, have definitely become closer in the wake of the Boone Barbies being created. This can be seen in the crowds that frequent our events or even in looking at the growth of something like our Instagram account. Also, many people have been able to experience drag for the first time, both as performers and as audience members. For me, and for these people, discovering drag changes someone's life for the better. It can make people more hopeful, more tolerant, and more aware of the issues that queer people and gender-nonconforming people face. Money has been poured back into the community through show proceeds and even events fully for charity. Both App State and Town of Boone policies have become more inclusive. Overall we have been able to show that queer strength overpowers hate any day of the week.


Q: How do you hope to be remembered by the queer community?

A: I hope to be remembered by the queer community as a trailblazer in the area. Molly Pocket and I, as well as Yutell Mi and many other amazing drag performers, have put in so much hard work to build the drag scene in Boone up stronger. Many came before us, and many will come after, but for our time in Boone, we have truly been able to create something so special. I hope to be remembered for this hard work and commitment to my community. I hope to be remembered as an example of what can happen when you turn ideas into reality, saying yes to whatever comes your way, and building a queerer world through the power of drag.

This interview was conducted remotely by Mikayla Hamilton on February 14, 2024.
Photo 1 by Kyla Willoughby, 2023 and Photo 2 by Liv Ernest, 2023.


Mikayla Hamilton is an intern at Sinister Wisdom. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Lees-McRae College. In her work, she strives to highlight the many different forms individuality can take. You can find more from her in The Salisbury Post and Ragweed, the student literary journal of Lees-McRae College.

Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volume II
Julie Weiss
Bottlecap Press, 2024, 32 pages
$10.00

Reviewed by Courtney Heidorn

Julie Weiss embodies the spirit and style of Adrienne Rich’s love poems in Volume II of Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich. Readers do not need to read Volume I to be enchanted by Weiss’s quaint love story, nestled away in a Pyrenean village, nor do Rich’s original poems need to be read to experience the narrative of lesbian longing that threads through this collection. Breath Ablaze is imbued with subtle storytelling, powdered sugar longing, and a thread of timelessness that delivers Weiss’s poems straight to the heart of any sapphic reader, young or old.

Weiss’s ability to subtly, yet powerfully create a narrative of her two central lovers feels like an old friendship that picks up right where it left off. In poem III, the narrator writes about her lover: “Does identity matter, anyway, / when beyond my bakery, the landscape is / undressing in the glimmer of your astonishment?” (3). Not only does the ambiguity of identity lend itself to the mystery that the narrator experiences, but also the reader’s participation in that mystery. With this intoxicating obscurity, how could one not keep reading?

Our narrator is a baker, and their creations are often paired with a sweet lesbian longing that they and the reader find themselves hungering for. In poem VI, the narrator muses, “Like the caramel-dipped / castaña de mazapán seducing your tongue” (6). The narrator’s lover is an outsider discovering the baker’s craft, which Weiss translates as a sensual exploration of desire. Beyond baked goods, Weiss incorporates sopa oscense (a popular stew in Huesca) into her poetry, having the narrator implore, “I’d happily mince all of me into a fusion / of flavors just to glide down your throat” (9). The same need for sustenance is conflated with the need for their lover’s touch.

Weiss’s love story, because it is short, subtle, and sweet, feels outside of time. This narrative could exist in any century, just as poem XIII ponders, “Say it were the 18th century…Would you / engrave my face on the wall separating us, / where your slashed breasts rested?” (13). This collection asks: would we have our same lovers, even our same desires, if time were a mere chance? Weiss answers: “Asombroso, how time and space conspired / to merge our lives” (21). It is both: time’s providence and chance led these lovers together, and, at the same time, leads readers to this exhilarating collection.

Courtney Heidorn (she/they) is a Sinister Wisdom intern. She holds a BA in English and creative writing from Azusa Pacific University. You can see more of their work in CURIOUS Magazine and at Pearl Press.

Poor Things, 2023, 2h 21m
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Reviewed by Henri Bensussen

Emma Stone won a Best Actress Oscar for this exceptional movie. Nominated for all the top “Bests,” Poor Things also won for Best Production Design, Costume Design, and Make-up/Hair Styling. The movie is based on Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, which the L.A. Times Book Review called a “liberating vision of sexuality” told with “scathing wit.” Publishers Weekly called it a “work of inspired lunacy.” The screen play, written by Tony McNamara, builds on these tropes. Emma Stone, a co-producer, inhabits the role of Bella Baxter to the limits of current cinematography.

I am drawn to Victorian novels with their dark secrets and fraught romances, and movies with strong women protagonists. I liked the outrageous, comical The Favourite by the same director, also featuring Emma Stone. In this film, she becomes Bella, portraying so naturally her behavior and emotions that I felt like I was there, watching from just out of the camera’s range, pondering the oddness of this child, watching her grow into a young woman. She reminded me of my own growing-up years, with a girlfriend who was always ready for a race on roller skates or putting on a play. Poor Things is everything wrapped up together, a send-up of Frankenstein’s Monster, Jane Eyre, Little Women, and Northanger Abbey.

The Scottish surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) is lauded for his faultless way of sewing parts of people together and beautifully restoring them to life. At home we see various odd animals running happily about his garden: a pig’s head with a goat’s middle and a calf’s back end, say, or a duck with a giraffe’s neck. At the head of a long dining table sits Bella Baxter, Godwin’s daughter. She has the stature of a young woman yet acts like a young child. It is all strange, as if we’re in Alice’s Wonderland. No harsh voices, no big dramatic scenes. This is the lively garden of Dr. Baxter, featuring his sewn-together farm animals, and a family enjoying their calm and matter-of-fact life.

Bella was born when Godwin dragged a pregnant suicide out of the river and into his surgery, substituting the brain of her fetus for her own dead one. Over the course of the film we see Bella’s new brain take over as she grows from babyhood to girlhood, learning about her own body and the joys of masturbation. By the age of twelve she’s reading the medical books in her father’s library. Bella is not formally educated, but is allowed to educate herself, the way Mary Shelley did, and as many of us “book worms” did.

A curious child, Bella retains her curiosity throughout her life. As her brain catches up with her body, she attracts Godwin’s student Max (Ramy Youssef), a kind and caring man who offers marriage, and then the dastardly Duncan (Mark Ruffalo). Duncan, a rich lawyer, gambler, and drinker, offers sex and a trip to Europe. Bella agrees to marry Max, but chooses to go with Duncan so she can learn more about the world. In the many naked scenes that follow, Bella enjoys sex and often wants it. These scenes, directed by Emma Stone, are done so naturally there was no sense for me of their being pornographic. Gothic moments ensue as they travel to many countries. She wanders freely among people without any shyness–imitating, learning, curious. The audience, watching alongside Bella, sees the people as she does.

When Bella discovers poverty, she feels compassion for the poor and gives away all of Duncan’s money. Penniless, stranded in Paris, Duncan falls apart while Bella discovers that as a prostitute she can earn money. At the brothel she’s courted by the Madame Swiney (Kathryn Hunter) and falls in love with another worker there, Toinette (Suzy Bemba), until an ill Godwin calls her home to his deathbed. There, as she prepares to marry Max, the film takes another twist. Bella learns she has a husband (Christopher Abbott), the husband she escaped by drowning. She gives herself to him because that is what wives do.

He brings her to his castle, threatens genital mutilation, and takes up his gun when she tries to leave. She fights back, causing him to pass out after shooting himself in the foot. This leads to the final scene, a hilarious moment for me and many other women in the audience. Now a successful surgeon herself, following in Godwin’s footsteps, Bella is at home in the garden with her lover Toinette, served by the faithful Max, and with her former husband changed into an odd animal with the brain of a goat. Many men in the audience of the theater I was at were not smiling, but seemed puzzled by this ending.


Henri Bensussen writes on themes of inter-personal/inter-species relationships, aging, and the comic aspects of the human condition from the viewpoint of a birder, biologist, and gardener. Currently, a book-length memoir is her focus, and she continues to publish poetry and creative non-fiction.

Archangels of Funk
Andrea Hairston
Tordotcom Books, 2024, 384 pages
$29.99

Reviewed by Judith Katz

Archangels of Funk is the most hopeful book about a coming dystopia this reader could ever imagine. Andrea Hairston’s rambunctious third novel in a series that follows the adventures of Cinnamon Jones, self-proclaimed “Scientist, Artiste, and Hoodoo Conjurer,” alongside her community and ancestors, is a joy to read.

Honestly—I’m not a regular reader of sci-fi or techno catastrophe fiction. The last book like that I read and followed (and then just barely) was Marge Piercy’s He She and It from 1991. But the world Hairston invents here, set in a version of Western Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley in the near future, sometime after a catastrophe known as “the water wars,” is so complete, so vivid, so rich, that not only could I picture it all, I couldn’t put the book down.

We first meet Cinnamon Jones, led by her trusty pooch, Bruja, speeding down a bike path, searching for a bot called Shooting-Star. Attached to her bicycle is a Wheel-Wizard trailer, loaded with her three circus bots—transformers who contain, we soon find out, the spirits, energies, and talents of her late elders Redwood and Iris Phipps and Aidan Wildfire. The emergency? Cinnamon needs to find her lost or stolen bot soon because the annual valley New World Festival—a theatrical Mardi Gras where food and spectacular entertainment are free and all are welcome—is set to begin the next day.

The search for Shooting-Star is just the start of a saga that draws together water spirits, cyber criminals, old friendships, romantic betrayals, sage robots, an ancient musician, and a wide array of plant-based communal meals, all delivered in the shell of a deserted mall, repurposed as a community center and school. In addition to Cinnamon and her bots, readers are treated to a beautifully drawn cast of human and spirit characters—street kids, security folks, actors, acrobats, and performers—some masked, many queer, some intent on hacking Cinnamon’s exquisitely programmed bots, while she is bound and determined to keep them all safe.

Is there violence in this future world? Yes. Is there intrigue? Also yes. But really this novel is full of enchantment, humor, fabulous costumes, and best of all, daring acts of theatre and resistance.

Judith Katz is the author of two novels, The Escape Artist and Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound, which won the 1992 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction. She is currently working on sequels to both novels, and is still meditating on her novel in a drawer, The Atomic Age.

American Queers: Poems
Jesse Marvo Diamond
Červená Barva Press, 2023, 54 pages
$18.00

Reviewed by Courtney Heidorn

In American Queers, Jesse Mavro Diamond creates a guiltless queer kingdom of historiography and reclamation. The Charley Shively epigraph—“Our guilt ruins our pleasure”—sets the tone for a mythical adventure through queer resistance and liberation, honoring those who came before and those who will tread new waters in the future. Stormé DeLarverie, Richard Leitsch, Pat Parker, and Charley Shively are those who have come before, and with impressively researched biographical notes on each artist, readers of American Queers will surely step in stride with the story of these mid-century gay activists.

Prior knowledge of these historical figures is not necessary to enjoy these celebratory and elegiac poems of American queer liberation. Mavro Diamond expresses that her goal is to let readers “once again hear the beating of [the] full, red American hearts” of late queer leaders. She wishes to “infuse” her verse with the “rhythm” of the activists’ spirit. In this way, American Queers functions as a time capsule of queer reverence and tradition.

The poems in American Queers are historiographical in the sense that they track the lineage of the figures she models. In “The Night King Storm’s Lineage Was Proven,” Marvo Diamond recounts DeLarverie’s journey from birth to her involvement in the Stonewall Riots: “At 15 she started hitting back. / That’s how champions are born…Fast forward thirty-three years…when the NY cops went to gather gays / like cattle into the vans” (5). The poem is short and brief, but the lines convey clear and powerful storytelling. Marvo Diamond truly captures the spirit of DeLarverie’s energetic rebellion from birth to adulthood.

The very nature of American Queers implies a certain level of reclamation—reclamation of personhood, identity, and history. However, the section titled “Those Who Came After” is specifically geared toward this theme: “We The People: 1973,” which displays this most effectively. The poem, written as a “queer constitution” of sorts, reclaims what it means to be an American in a country where queerphobia is rampant. Mavro Diamond writes, “Courage is our undoing, they will be sure of that,” and “They cannot deny us our desire / Which is our hunger. / They cannot deny us our love / Which is our bread” (48-49). Here, Mavro Diamond defines American queerness as resistance and the fight for love.

I could not end this review without mentioning my favorite poem, titled “Lines,” from the “Muse: Pat Parker” section. This poem exceeded my expectations of what poems with borrowed lines can look like and accomplish. The piece blends Parker’s words and Marvo Diamond’s beautifully, creating a mosaic of queer experience that transcends time (23-27).

A diverse set of readers will enjoy American Queers. Those who lived through the mid-century gay rights movement will be transported back into the joys and hardships of twentieth-century queerness. For younger readers who often view their queer experience as starkly different from the lived experience of our late leaders, Mavro Diamond reignites this queer history. She speaks through the legacies of DeLarverie, Leitsch, Parker, and Shively, literally writing into their tradition and offering their influence to our modern minds.

Courtney Heidorn (she/they) is a Sinister Wisdom intern. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Azusa Pacific University. You can see more of their work in CURIOUS Magazine and at Pearl Press.

“Nelly & Nadine,” 2022, 1h 32m
Directed by Magnus Gertten

Reviewed by Emily L. Quint Freeman
© March 2024

Almost Lost Forever: A True Story of Love and Survival

When the extraordinary Swedish documentary “Nelly & Nadine,” directed by Magnus Gertten, was released in 2022, it was featured in over 100 festivals and received more than 20 international awards, mainly in Europe. Thankfully in the US, it is now widely available on various streaming services. For me, it was one of those films that stays with you, makes you think, makes you remember, makes you well up with tears.

“Nelly & Nadine” is a true story about two women who became lovers at the most harrowing place and time—a concentration camp during WWII. Somehow, they survived. If it weren’t for a benevolent granddaughter named Sylvie, their story would have been lost.

This documentary spoke to the heart of my own struggles and experiences as a lesbian of Jewish heritage. As a child, I knew my family’s immigrant story, how they crammed onto ships headed to America from eastern Europe during the early 20th century. Those that stayed behind never visited us, their lives passed from view.

I was over sixty when I first visited Prague and went to the historic Jewish cemetery. Written on a memorial wall were the family names of Jews who were transported and killed at the Terezin concentration camp. My eyes scrolled down the lengthy list and stopped short at one name: Rappaport, the family name of my mother’s father. I gasped; an icy chill went down my spine. If I hadn’t gone to that old graveyard, their fate would have been lost to me.

“Nelly & Nadine” begins at a remote farmhouse in Northern France.

The elderly Sylvie goes to the attic and opens dusty boxes, which contain her dead grandmother’s diary, letters, photographs, and home movies. She and her husband became the custodian of the boxes after her mother’s death. They faithfully kept them for many decades, as Sylvie had fond memories of her grandmother, Nelly Mousset-Vos (1906-1987), who had been an opera singer of considerable talent.

All Sylvie knew of Nelly was the kind, gray-haired woman with the wonderful voice who came to spend Christmas holidays with her French family, traveling all the way from her home in Caracas, Venezuela. After the end of WWII, Nelly moved there with a woman named Nadine. Sylvie was told that Nadine was just her grandmother’s friend and housemate.

At some point, Sylvie was curious; and in one box, she found Nelly’s diary. She read only a few lines before it was too painful for her to continue. Her grandmother never spoke to any family member about her two years in various Nazi concentration camps, but there it was all laid out in words. Finally, she dared to go further, and what she found was astounding.

Sylvie decided to share Nelly’s archive, so this documentary could be made. Researchers, historical recordkeepers, and friends of Nelly and Nadine helped to flesh out their true story. As the story was unearthed bit by bit, Sylvie participated in the key interviews and was shown the documents. She came to appreciate her grandmother not only as a remarkable person, but also as a hero of France.

In the 1930s, Sylvie knew that Nelly performed in cities all over Europe, and that she had two children (her marriage ended in divorce). She learned that after the Nazi occupation of France in 1940, her grandmother joined the Resistance as part of a spy ring. In 1943, Nelly was arrested in Paris by the Gestapo and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The prisoners were forced to do hard labor under terrible conditions; if they couldn’t, they were killed.

Old photographs and home movies revealed what the mysterious Nadine looked like. She was a tall, elegant figure with short hair, often dressed in trousers, a shirt and tie. Born in Madrid, Nadine Hwang (1902-1972) was the daughter of a high-ranking Chinese diplomat and a Belgian mother. She was educated in multiple languages. Nadine moved to Paris in 1933 and became part of the feminist/lesbian circle around Natalie Barney (1876-1972). A playwright, poet and novelist, Barney hosted a salon of notable artists and writers at her Left Bank home. Nadine became Barney’s chauffeur and one of her casual women lovers. Nelly’s memoir stated that Nadine helped at-risk people escape from Occupied France to Spain, which led to her arrest and transportation to Ravensbrück in May 1944.

After Nelly and Nadine met in the camp, their relationship became intimate and passionate; and against all odds, their love for each other kept them alive. They were separated when Nelly was later transported to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Forced labor in the stone quarry usually meant death, and Nelly was close to the edge at this camp. Her intense memories of Nadine kept her going.

The movie shows a poignant clip of a film taken in 1945 when a group of liberated prisoners from Ravensbrück arrived in Sweden. You see the faces of the survivors deliriously happy to be alive and start their recovery. Nadine was in that crowd. Hers was the only sad, tense face. At the time, no one understood the reason. Nadine was thinking of Nelly. Was she alive or dead?

By some miracle, Nelly had survived, and they found each other again. After the war, what followed was the story of so many gay men and women before the gay liberation movement of the 1970s. I know because I was around then.

1965. I was a sophomore at UC Berkeley when I phoned my father from the dorm. I told him that I wasn’t returning home for the summer. I’d met someone I wanted to be with, someone I loved. Her name was Caitlin. My father exploded, calling me a child, an infatuated fool. He told me to come home, or all financial support would end. I went with Caitlin, and my life became one of desperate struggle to stay in school and graduate. But I did.

The price of being honest and true to oneself was so high that gay people had to make heartrending decisions. Some had secret lovers under the cover of a straight marriage. For career and paycheck, one’s real private life wasn’t ever spoken about at work. Coming out meant stiff societal consequences (even criminal in the case of men). On the streets, fluid gender or flamboyant clothes raised the risk of being beaten or killed. Despite the passage of gay marriage and wider acceptance, it’s still tough out there for so many.

Nelly and Nadine were determined to live free and honest lives. Staying in Europe was too painful after what they experienced in the camps and too close to Nelly’s family. They picked Caracas, Venezuela -- it was sunny and inexpensive with available jobs for educated, multilingual Europeans. The home movies showed them relaxing and entertaining their queer friends. They lived as partners until Nadine died in 1972.

Especially moving was the way Nadine filmed Nelly at their Caracas apartment. She caught Nelly deep in her own thoughts. Her face reflected a profound inner sadness, as her time in the camps could never be forgotten. One can only imagine that those memories were crushing and tragic.

But she had Nadine, and they endured those memories together, always together. Love is love, that’s all and that's enough.


Emily L. Quint Freeman is the author of the memoir, Failure to Appear, Resistance, Identity and Loss (Blue Beacon Books) and non-fiction articles appearing in digital magazines including Salon, Narratively, Drizzle Review, Creation, The Mindful Word, The Gay & Lesbian Review, MockingOwl Roost, Syncopation Literary Journal, and Open Democracy.

The Weight of Survival
Tina Biello
Caitlin Press, 2024, 72 pages
$20.00

Reviewed by Courtney Heidorn

Language, Smell, & Memory: Tools for Surviving Grief

Tina Biello’s The Weight of Survival tells the story of her Italian immigrant upbringing through free verse and prose poems, inviting the reader to experience her family’s village of Casacalenda. The collection is primarily, and poignantly, a love letter to her ancestry, her mother country, and her childhood home of British Columbia. Biello brings us along on her odyssey of remembrance—remembrance of herself, her family, and, of course, Casacalenda. In combination with her inclusion of folklore curses and proverbs as well as treating time as a transcendent force, Biello successfully writes grief as a form of survival.

Biello begins The Weight of Survival with an author’s note about language, or more specifically, the dialetto di Casacalenda, or, the dialect of Casacalenda. Biello creates a thread of her mother tongue throughout the collection that is not only functional and culturally significant, but lends itself to the powerlessness of grief in poems like “Say Good-Bye” and “The Call.” In the latter, Biello writes about her mother’s death. She translates her father’s words from dialetto di Casacalenda: “our language digs gardens, builds sheds, makes wine” (33). In contrast with her mother’s death, it is her mother’s dialect that continuously creates—it is a language that survives.

Beyond her use of language to portray grief, Biello employs smell and mortality to reclaim memory. Biello primarily uses scent as an agent for remembrance in poems such as “My Death,” “Last Poem about My Mother,” and “On the Last Day of the World.” Biello’s craft is portrayed in her vivid employment of smell to evoke powerful memories in contrast to her mother’s Alzheimer’s. She writes, “I will make sugo, make sure our home / smells like my mother’s kitchen. / Assuming she will be greeting me, / I will create an altar” (13). Smell is an extremely powerful tool for the brain in communicating memory, especially grief. Although her mom’s memory is deteriorating, the power of smell is not, and the memories it produces do not fade either.

Although lesbianism is not the primary theme of The Weight of Survival, Sinister Wisdom readers will particularly enjoy “She Brought Home Women,” “Ode to Rosetta,” and “Queer Dear.” The elements explored above such as memory, language, and grief are beautifully drawn out in these poems.

Biello’s storytelling shines in her prose poems, but their emotional depth is often lost. For example, “Lucia” beautifully captures the dissonance of being native to Canada but not feeling truly at home because of the dreary weather (24). Casacalenda, on the other hand, has bright and vibrant weather, which is more akin to the connotation of her middle name, Lucia. “The Corner Store” is a similar prose poem and includes experimentation with form: Biello includes a recipe for àglie e òglie (30). These poems, although they lack a sense of completeness and depth like the rest of the collection, are nevertheless enjoyable and interesting.

The close of the collection is somber yet beautiful, perfectly showcasing Biello’s thematic genius. “His Ashes” and “Silence” are triumphs. She reminds us that hope can be found through a reclaimed memory of loved ones, remembering that “the years have been long, but the loving good” (66). The Weight of Survival is not a collection to miss.


Courtney Heidorn (she/they) is a Sinister Wisdom intern. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Azusa Pacific University. You can see more of their work in CURIOUS Magazine and at Pearl Press.