Odd Girls And Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life Twentieth-Century America - Softcover

Faderman, Lillian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140171223 ISBN 13: 9780140171228

Publisher: Penguin, 1992

Synopsis

Traces the evolution of lesbian identity and subcultures from the early years of the century to the diversity of today's lifestyles. Faderman uses journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, new accounts, novels, medical literature and over 186 personal interviews with lesbians of all races, ages and classes to uncover and relate this often surprising narrative of lesbian life in America. Lesbian identity could emerge, Faderman maintains, only during this century with the sexual freedom of the 1920s and the 1960s, as well as the social freedom made possible by World War II, the education of women and the civil rights and women's movements. The term "lesbian" did not become current until the late 19th century, when European sexologists began to explore female same-sex loving. Sexologists stigmatized same-sex loving where once it had been accepted. This book tells how women who accepted the label "lesbian" altered the sexologists' definitions, creating identities and ideologies for themselves.

About this title

Review:

One has to respect the tenacity of Lillian Faderman for making sense of the evolution of lesbian life in twentieth-century America.... This is a remarkable social history.... Her study attains the depth and evenhandedness of a scholarly classic.--Susan Brownmiller "The Washington Post Book World "

Faderman's sweeping, mesmerizing prose accentuates the magnificent scholarship in this definitive account of lesbian life in the past 100 years.... Faderman has combined her talent and experience to accomplish this wonder.--Barbara Grier "Lambda Book Report "

Nothing odd about Odd Girls--it combines clear prose with meticulous research. This book is an important contribution to understanding America and its people in our time.--Rita Mae Brown, author of Rubyfruit Jungle

About the Author:

Lillian Faderman is professor emerita of English at California State University, Fresno, and author of the award-winning Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present and Scotch Verdict: Miss Pirie and Miss Woods v. Dame Cumming Gordon. She is also the author of Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir and To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America-a History, and coauthor of Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0140171223
• ISBN 13: 9780140171228
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400