June 1986

Gay Peoples Chronicle

Page 7

LESBIAN LETTERS

By DORA FORBES

Review: Lesbian Letters, by Christine Heron Stockton: Heron Press, San Francisco. $8.95.

Knowing that Lesbian Letters was written by Christine Stockton and issued by Heron Press, which she founded, might tempt one to dismiss the book off as a vanity production. This would be a serious mistake. The book is very good, in execution as well as message.

Lesbian Letters has a strong sense of purpose, addressing the straight world as much as the lesbian community. Even while its thrust is lesbian, it also speaks in important ways to and for all gay people.

In form, the book consists of a series of letters, interspersed with occasional poems. The letters are fictional, written by different persons, although a certain threazd of continuity is provided by recurring letters by one woman, Jennifer, depicting her own growing self-awareness. The book is also structured by a kind of continuity in theme: Coming Out to Self; Coming Out to Family; About the Children; Lesbian Relationships; and The Community.

Lesbian Letters seems to cover almost every aspect of the lesbian experience, from

schoolgirl crushes through bisexuality to awareness of oneself as someone who loves other women. It deals with coming-out; with coupling and discoupling, with joy and pain. It extends into some unexpected areas, such as the decision to bear a child, the death of a gay male friend from AIDS, and awareness of aging.

If any aspect of the lesbian experience seems givẹn little expression, this is separatism. Its relative ommission is not surprising, given Stockton's aim of using her book to bridge gaps.

While Stockton's book is in important ways an attempt to present lesbian life to straight people, and while she constantly emphasizes the common threads of human experience, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, it is uncompromisingly committed to uncloseting oneself and to straight acceptance of gay people.

Not least, the reader discovers that she really cares about the persons writing the letters and often the persons written to or about. I often found myself wanting to know what happened to them.

In sum, this is a very good book which I would reCommend highly as reading for straight and gay people, and for men and women.

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