Lesbian Love Story : A Queer History of Sapphic Romance

A TIME MAGAZINE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023 'INTIMATE AND SEXY' Nina LaCour | 'PERSONAL, PALPABLE AND CONTAGIOUS' Michelle Tea | 'OUTSTANDING' Stephen McCauley | 'A DELIGHTFUL DEBUT' Shannon Carlin

Lesbian Love Story is a genre-defying history of sapphic romance like no other. On her quest to discover lesbian role models overlooked by history, Amelia Possanza uncovers seven incredible love stories in the archives. Expertly blending her subjects' own words with richly imagined and vigorously researched moments from their lives to tell their stories in an intimate, vivid and immediate way, Possanza weaves these narratives together with her own memories of uncovering the past, yearning and longing alongside her subjects and of growing into her queerness. This is a celebration of sapphics - of women who love women - but also of people who have always existed outside of traditional definitions of gender and bravely lived beyond the confines of heteronormativity. Each of the lesbians in this collection moved through the world in their own way and helped the world: Sappho, one of the ever first recorded lesbians, gave sapphics their name. Mary Casal published one of the first memoirs of lesbian love in the 1930s. Mabel Hampton was a Black dancer and activist whose love embraced a whole community at the heart of the Harlem Renaissance. Babe Didrikson opened up new worlds of professional athletics to women through her achievements in professional golf in the 1950s. Terry Brown lived an openly gender non-conforming life from the 1950s to the 1970s. Gloria Anzaldúa was a Chicana feminist poet and intersectional activist writing in the 1970s and 1980s. Amy Hoffman stepped in as the primary caregiver for her friend, Mark Riegle, through his struggles with the Aids epidemic in the 1980s. Their stories illuminate a forgotten history, as well as showing us all a new way to understand what love means when there is nothing material to be gained.