I am about to review a World War II book in which the lesbians survive. If knowing which characters survive is a spoiler that would taint your enjoyment of a book, now would be a good time to stop reading this post. Ordinarily I would start by saying the name of the book and talking about its other qualities and eventually, with spoiler tags, I would add that the lesbians survive. But honestly, in this, the darkest timeline, the lesbians surviving is a big part of what made the book so meaningful to me, and I thought I would probably…
Leave a CommentTag: these troubled times
Hello, hello! Have you missed me? I have not been telling you about short fiction lately, but I am inspired by the start of a new semester to resume my short fiction reading, even though semesters are meaningless in my life now that I am no longer (thank God) in school. Suitably, though, I am starting with a kind of story that I’m a sucker for, the kind that is written like a pretend piece of scholarship. You know the way to my heart, M. E. Bronstein. “Elegy of a Lanthornist,” by M. E. Bronstein (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 6700 words)…
Leave a CommentI hope everyone had a good Fourth of July! I spent mine reacquainting myself with Howard Zinn, which is an extremely patriotic use of a patriotic holiday. If you haven’t read his A People’s History of the United States, (you should and) the thrust of his argument is that it’s the people who have driven change and progress in this country. The powerful have tried for stasis, and over and over again, the people haven’t let them get away with it. Laborers formed unions; former slaves kept talking and fighting until people listened; women organized and marched and starved themselves…
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