GIRLS NEXT DOOR: Into the Heart of Lesbian America
Lindsy Van Gelder
ISBN 10: 0684811189 / ISBN 13: 9780684811185
Published by Simon & Schuster, 1996
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 1996
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: GOOD
About this title
Synopsis:
Two journalists draw on more than one hundred interviews with women around the U.S. to examine the manners, mores, institutions, attitudes, beliefs,
and lifestyles of lesbians throughout the country
From the Publisher:
What Tom Wolfe did for astronauts and Roger Angell did for baseball, journalists Lindsy Van Gelder and Pamela Robin Brandt do for lesbians in this
landmark book.
Long misperceived as a separatist coven, a default option, or a sort of ladies' auxiliary to the gay men's movement, lesbian life has achieved a new
visibility in the past few years. But for all the interest in who's out and who's not (yet), there's been surprisingly little understanding of the diversity and
richness of lesbian experience.
This funny, lively, and perceptive book will change all that. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with women around the country, and on their
own keen wits and eyes, Van Gelder and Brandt have composed an unprecedented portrait of how gay women today -- "born" and "made," lipsticked and
flannel-shirted alike -- think, feel, love, and live. Three major "tribal" events -- the long-running Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, "Dinah" (the annual
Dinah Shore Golf Tournament and party circuit, a mecca for upwardly mobile luppies), and a cross-country trek with the activist Lesbian Avengers en
route to the 1994 Stonewall commemoration -- provide points of entry into an exploration of lesbian identity, social dynamics, and politics that's as
entertaining as it is revealing. The result is a kaleidoscopic portrait that will resonate with lesbians themselves and reveal to their "neighbors" a world of
unsuspected vibrancy and depth.
