From Booklist
In this anthology of mostly very recent (late 1980s to 1992) stories compiled for classroom use but mercifully lacking textbook impedimenta (study questions, etc.), editor Zahava strives to reflect the diversity of gay and lesbian lives. Overall, the contents are organized to mirror the human lifeline, beginning with the childhood fantasies of Audre Lorde and ending with Donald Vining's autobiographical protagonist in a nursing home and Becky Birtha's aged character, Jinx, still communing with her Gracie, gone some 15 years. The contributors include authors who have gained some mainstream recognition, such as Lorde, Edmund White, Dorothy Allison, and Paul Monette, as well as those who have broad small press and academic followings, such as Barbara Wilson, Louie Crew, Judith McDaniel, and the late John Preston. Novelist Valerie Miner's introduction adequately surveys the gay and lesbian American writers of an earlier day. Although prepared to aid such academic pursuits as Sapphic modernism, biomythography, gender studies, and anti-Semitism, the ambitious volume's contents are entertaining enough to reward the nonstudent reader. Marie Kuda

ANNOTATION

George Stambolian, Terri de la Pena, Audre Lorde, Paul Monette, Edmund White, and James Manrique are just six of the writers represented in this collection of contemporary lesbian and gay fiction. Zahava has compiled a unique and necessary collection, selecting stories for their artistic power and treatment of topics that are significant in lesbian and gay life and politics today.

FROM THE PUBLISHER