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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A delightful diversity, 11 May 2003
Twenty seven stories by twenty seven lesbians may well be a treat but it can feel a bit overfacing too. I did what most of us probably do and started with the dead certs. For me, Jackie Kay and Ali Smith are the big names in this collection and their stories are exquisite. Sure footed, not a word out of place and either of them would be worth the cover price alone. The big names turned not to be the only delights though. Some of the very small names in Groundswell are equally enchanting. Try Carter's story, Hot, for example. Lesbian fiction has come a long way since the days when we'd put up with any old coming out story / falling in love with your best friend story / getting dumped for a man story. Nothing is off limits nowadays and the Groundswell girls cover a giddying range of subjects, themes and settings. The protagonists could be madwomen or they could be men, the period could be now, it could be the second world war or it could be seventeenth century New England. The characters could be engaging in the usual stuff of dyke life - getting thrown out of the pub, falling in love with a schoolteacher or having hot sex with figments of their imagination. But they're just as likely to be growing a new heart from seed, befriending a pig or falling in love with a tree. The writers here are on the whole more experienced than those in the first Diva collection. Very few are first time writers, although they haven't all published short fiction before. They are as diverse in their style and approach as they are in their themes, with the tone going from comic to tragic through whimsical to surreal and back again. With this kind of range, let alone the sheer number of stories, it would be unrealistic to expect every one to be a winnner for every reader. Personally, I could take or leave half a dozen or so, and with a couple of them I couldn't really keep up enough interest to finish. But I'm not complaining - I'd say there's a good twenty thought provoking and engaging stories here.
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by Jackie Kay
by Katherine V. Forrest
by Jackie Kay
by Stacy Bias
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DVD ~ Shelley Conn
