Book review
Why do I love this book so much?
The two characters have no language to describe their love, and so must make one up. Just as the pioneering spirit was moving people west from New England to the wilds of what would become New York State, so these two women are stretching out of the rocky, spent confines of their lives to a new frontier of lesbian freedom.
No one asks ‘What about the native peoples whose land we’re taking?’
How can I not love such a story, given all the grim, anguished novels and memoirs that are being published today from our community?
It’s true I’ve had to turn a blind eye to the many technical flaws of the novel.
First person is tempting to the untutored writer. ‘I’m telling my story, however disguised, so I’ll write as if I were th emain character.’ But the writer soon discovers that she has bound herself to one body of knowledge by binding herself to one body. She will have to use convolutions such as, ‘So-and-so told me later that…’ when she wishes to inform the reader of events her POV character cannot witness.
When Alma Routsong, the pseudonymous author, trips over this once or twice, she then resorts of writing separate sections for her other main character’s POV. Kudos for her that she manages to keep the two voices so separate and different. But she soon runs into the difficulty of managing the slightly dizzying alternating voices.
In form, too, the novel stumbles. Using the classic romance form of star-crossed lovers, the tale must end when the lovers die, or the lovers succeed in uniting. But Routsong continues the tale, morphing in a story about how they lived happily ever after. I can’t blame her. The lesbian lore says that Routsong’s friends couldn’t bear for this tale to end, and so Routsong tacked on the ending with the trip up river and the fixing up of the homestead. There are even some short stories that continue the saga (which are on my to-read list). The tale peters out instead of ending.
Worse, Routsong realizes too late that her secondary heroine needs to come of age before the lovers can unite. Thus is born the section where Sarah wanders with the pastor, disguised as a boy. It’s almost as if every lesbian experience, including the cross-dressing life, has to be squashed into the novel. Sarah Waters does it in Tipping the Velvet, so we can’t be too hard on Routsong. And this little divergence from the romance into the coming of age is charming and full of interesting detail of life on the road for a traveling man. Se we forgive this sin, easily, without a qualm.
What makes the story compelling to me, after so many readings, is how the two characters learn to read each other. We women are prone to accommodation, and both Sarah and Patience (more Sarah than Patience, in spite of her name) try to fit themselves around each other emotionally. Patience loves Sarah’s bluff acceptance of herself, and yet tries to manipulate her into a more ‘womanly’ disguise. Sarah sees Patience’s fastidiousness and attempts to push her into a more ‘masculine’ courage.
All the things that make a lesbian relationship so astonishing to those of us who (mis)spent our earlier lives in heterosexual relationships are laid out for us to enjoy in this wonderful little book. The intense and instant connection with one of our tribe. The confusion between where we end and our lover begins. The constant bending to make a more peaceful home, and the delight in discovering that we need not be contortionists.
All the dangers of life outside the lesbian community are also laid out–but not as insurmountable problems. Instead, they are challenges that can be met. The difficulties of loving straight girls. Recalcitrant maile relatives. The insults and put-downs we experience when negotiating through a man’s world. The betrayals of our female friends and family. Would that all of us had such an easy time of this as Patience and Sarah do! How can we not love this book which gives us hope?
- Goodreads rating – 3.90
- REVIEW – Nina