Victoria A. Brownworth (–2025)

The first word that comes to mind when I think of this book is mediocre. Brownworth’s writing is neither extremely bad nor extremely good. It just kind of exists. Except for “ER – Queer Style,” all of her essays fell flat for me at different points but especially in their endings. She writes with a lack of rootedness that’s hard to describe but contradictory, repetitive, reductive, and meandering are words I thought often as I made my way through this collection.

To get to every show more idea she wrote that felt insightful or thought-provoking, I had to push through a series of distorted perspectives, poor logic, and bad metaphors (most notably, her use of the oppression of communities she’s not a part of as metaphors for her own life and community experiences). Ultimately, it felt like she viewed her writing as more persuasive, more impactful, more important, and more revolutionary than I actually found most of it.

I found out online after I started reading this book that Brownworth is a TERF but kept reading because I picked this book up more to observe queer stylistic choices in non-fiction as I’m working on a writing project of my own. I bring it up because there are a few places where you can see the underpinnings of her transphobic beliefs but she argues in a contradictory fashion when it comes to gender and trans folks, so perspectives on those sections may vary. She also writes graphically about female genital mutilation and death (including suicide), so be prepared for that if you consider reading this. show less

This collection suffers from an obvious lack of material. I'm sure there's a lot of lesbian erotica from the period that couldn't be reprinted because it's lost or because copyright holders find it improper. Too bad! The result is a few real erotic gems like "The Artist's Model" and "Shop Girls Wanted" hidden among sexually explicit or even just discreetly sensual excerpts from novels.
As extra filler, 3 newly written pieces of erotica set in the time period are added at the end. show more Unfortunately, despite potentially exciting settings, they are of vastly inferior quality and much less thrilling than even the dullest examples of the "real thing" preceeding them. show less