January 1989 Building a world with myth and allegory In Mundane's World, all living things earn a voice in the story and share equally in the perpetuation of life BY A N N D E E H O C H M A N TiJXJNDANE’S 1V± WORLD eaders of Judy Grahn can trace footprints from her poetry and nonfiction to the strange, mythic landscape of Mundane’s World. This, her first novel, carries themes introduced in earlier works: the primacy and playfulness of language, the value in the “ common” details of women’s lives, the sense of nature and history that binds women across centuries. But as a framework for the book, these ideas speak too loudly, eventually out-shouting both the plot V. ' V . . - v s s ’. u\\ and the characters. In Mundane's World, the story ends up taking second place. In The Work o f a Common Woman (The Crossing Press, 1978) Grahn established herself as a skilled wordsmith who used language to pry apart convention and patriarchal culture. A series of poems called “ The Common Woman” looked with a respectful but unsentimental eye f ' > '■■ZZÙ' ‘ at the lives of seven women. About “ Ella, in a if -lÆ ; square apron, along Highway 80,” Grahn writes, “ Like some isolated lake / her flat blue eyes take care of their own stark / bottoms. Her A NOVEL BY hands are nervous, curled, ready to scrape.” Another Mother Tongue {Beacon Press, 1984) spun out of Grahn’s interest in language and culture, particularly the ways in which gay and lesbian tradition has been whispered through in language and setting seems designed to the centuries. The book is a fascinating, enter nudge the story into mythic proportions: “ Five taining study of gay history through the avenues mostly brown young girls moved down by the of language. riverside . . . they ranged in age from the eldest Mundane's World lacks both the razored to the youngest.. . . ” This kind of light-handed insight of Grahn’s poems and the historic reso description does set a tone and force readers to nance of her nonfiction. In an effort to create an exercise their imaginations. It does universalize egalitarian, utopian landscape, Grahn models a the story, suggesting that the allegorical mean bland world in which no character, conflict or ing is more important than the w ho-what-where episode stands out enough to command attention. details. But good fiction ultimately needs The book is written as a myth — actually, a specifics; it needs character and it needs series of mythic vignettes — tracing a young tension. Mundane’s World seems a pleasant girl’s coming of age. The story, set in a name enough place to visit, but Grahn gives us no less place an unspecified number of years ago, compelling reasons to stay. • follows Emesta and several of her friends from a frightening and pivotal encounter with a lion to an actual rite of passage, a four-day dream sequence in a room-sized menstrual chamber. The story is told largely from Emesta’s viewpoint, although the omniscient narration also dips inside the minds of other characters, he publisher and the editor of the Lambda animals, trees and plants. In Mundane's World, Rising Book Report, a bi-monthly review all living things earn a voice in the story and of contemporary gay and lesbian literature, share equally in the perpetuation of life. Indeed, have announced a new annual awards program Grahn carries this idea to specific extremes; the to recognize excellence in gay and lesbian women of Mundane's World sometimes repro writing and publishing. duce by taking plants as “ spirit mates” and dreaming their babies into their wombs. The public is invited to participate in the Lambda Literary Awards by nominating their Like Mary Daly, whose Webster’s First New favorite gay and lesbian books of 1988. Inter galactic Wickedary o f the English Nominations are accepted in twelve categories: Language played deliciously with the roots and Lesbian Fiction. Gay Men’s Fiction, Lesbian meanings of words, Grahn has fun with puns Non-fiction, Gay Men’s Non-fiction, Lesbian and wordplay. “ Being Dead is a Matter of Inter Mystery/Science Fiction, Gay Men’s Mystery/ nal Turmoil,” heads one chapter, a discussion Science Fiction, Gay and Lesbian Poetry, of the internal churning and merging of the Lesbian First Novel, Gay Men’s First Novel, “ matter” of a corpse. Another, describing an Lesbian Small Press Book Award, Gay Men’s overly zealous rain dance, is titled, “ Women Small Press Book Award, and AIDS (a special Together Are Often More Than Making Dew.” category). These epigraph-style headings, although clever, Nominating ballots are being distributed begin to feel forced, as if the chapters were through gay and lesbian newspapers and book written to justify their titles, rather than the stores and the Book Report itself. The deadline other way around. for nominations is February 17, 1989. Five Grahn makes satisfying use of repetition as a finalists in each category will be announced tool of myth and an allegory for how a young nationally on March I, 1989. girl gains knowledge by watching and doing, A panel of 60 judges from across the country, over and over and over. One segment that crops representing a broad cross section of the entire up several times, “ How Cooking Took a Long lesbian and gay literary community, will select Time to Learn,” examines the intuition that a single book in each category from among the governs how we prepare and eat food. finalists. These sections, along with some others, For further information about the awards work well as self-contained vignettes. But as a program or the banquet, please contact Will whole, the book lacks enough dramatic tension Guilliams: Book Report, 1625 Connecticut to propel it forward and make us care. Overall, Avenue. NW, Washington. DC 20009-1013 or Mundane’s World feels too self-conscious. phone (202) 462-6965. From the first words, an intentional vagueness R [ i Judy Grahn Lambda Literary Awards announced T Lesbian Stages: Plays by Sarah Dr«. Victoria Publishers. Inc. 1988. 310 page>i!,0 Pen $9.95. FO REST Group Events Sunday, Jan. 1: Annual cross country ski of Mt. Hood. (Gayle. 233-2084.) • Ian. 6: Potluck (6:30) and meeting he successful local production o f Alumnae justices c , ., > j News introduced Sarah Dreher’s vision and wit to Portland audiences. The publication o f Lesbian Stages, a collection of five plays that includes Alumnae News, brings her work to a wider audience, all the silent readers who hunger for images of lesbian lives in theater. The tive plays in this collection prove a varied and satisfying meal. While Dreher notes in the preface that most of her work is autobiographical, the plays in Lesbian Stages do not read as carbon copies of a single life. They take place in college towns and the Women’s Army Corps compounds and mountain cabins, they are set in 1945 and 1966 and the unspecified present. They span a range of tones from quick-witted comedy to family drama to farcical Gothic Romance. In Alumnae News, two friends, Stacey and Karen, confront each other ten years after their graduation from Wellesley, where a jealous classmate’s suspicion destroyed their friend ship. The scene shifts from Stacey’s college- town country home to the women’s junior-year dorm, where their developing affection for each other drove another friend, Terry, to report her suspicions that Stacey was a lesbian. The tone of the second play. Base Camp, is similar to Alumnae News. In it, a protagonist as sardonic, competent and irreverent as Stacey has an unexpected encounter with a manipula Shadows o f Ixjve, American Gay Fiction tive ex-lover. The setting changes — the pro edited bx Charles Jurrist (Alxson Publications. tagonist is the owner of an isolated Montana $R.95). mountain lodge, the ex-lover a reluctant The contributors to this volume of gay short member of a climbing party that is snowbound stories live in small towns such as Femdale, at the lodge for three days — but the theme rings Washington and Toms River, New Jersey as familiar. Both of these plays click with witty well as such diverse cities as Seattle. Toronto, dialogue and end. perhaps better than real life, Houston and Atlanta. with their female couples choosing the possibi Shadows o f Love abandons the rut of the New lity of love over the certainty of loneliness. York-San Francisco axis in which much of the Backward, Turn Backward strikes a more gay fiction of the past two decades has somber tone. Although the main character is a wallowed. In his introduction, the editor com lesbian, the theme of her sexuality takes second ments that the aim of the volume was to place to that of child abuse. Rae’s father assemble a group of stories that “ would more Monroe, is dying and Rae has come home, at accurately represent the geographic and ethnic the urgent plea of her sister Lynda, for a final diversity of gay America.” In this he has visit with this controlling, ailing man. succeeded, with no stinting on quality. This Brooding Sky sticks out of the collection Highlighting the volume is the wryly comic A View o f the Freeway by William Reyes which like a rap musician at the symphony. It contains no complex relationships or emotionally involves a second generation Mexican- charged encounters — it is a farcical Gothic American. two young illegals from Mexico and Romance, pure and funny. As reading material, an upwardly mobile Japanese-American. it provides gleeful relief to the more sober Reyes’s romance whets the appetite for more by this promising writer. themes of the other four plays in the collection. Hollandia ’45 takes place in a South Pacific — Jay Brown Women’s Air Corps compound during World War II. The main character. Kit Fortescue, must play herself as she was during the war and as she is 30 years later. This play contains both the A Mistress Moderately Fair, by Katherine kind of macabre wartime wisecracking that Sturtevant, Alyson Publications, $R.95 entertained M*A*S*H audiences and deeper conflicts about survival, both in and out of war. atherine Sturtevant’s first novel bursts In a scene late in the play that crackles with upon the scene much as one of her King’s intensity, 70-year-old Kit argues with her small- players burst upon the stage in the mid-1670s, minded neice, Marian, on the porch of her the setting for this fast-paced, exciting, house, while in the adjacent set representing adventurous lesbian love story. Kits’ memories, her wartime lover Mary begs The pages are peopled with lords, ladies, and her to stay. the dramatic and interesting players of Drury Marian’s jealousy would have her destroy Lane — London's theater district. Margaret Kit’s souvenirs, take away her memories, but Featherstone is an extraordinary woman; a Kit orders her off the property — and. figura widow who writes plays, competing with tively, declares her psyche off-limits to England’s most creative men. She longs for the Marian’s intrusions. It is an act of self- patronage of King Charles II — but even more preservation, reminding us that, in the old age she longs for Amy Dudley. awaiting us all. what we will have left are our Amy is a superb actor with a scar that would histories. In Hollaiulia 45, in all of these plays, keep most women from the stage. She also has a Dreher insists that those histories are worth past that could bring her to the gallows should it saving. be revealed. — Anndee Hochman Their lives and their stories become inter twined in this well researched, well written page-turner. Seventeenth century England The Gay Desk Calendar — 1989 by John comes to life with steamy sex scenes, intense Preston (Alyson Publications. $7.95) is chock fear and hatred of wrongdoers, and blessed full of daily reminders of the extent of the com revenge in this novel of love, suspense and justice. munity and history which pull us together. The first of what the editor hopes will be an — Sandra de Helen annual event. The Gay Desk Calendar is T K just out * 1 5 * January I W i