The Lesbian Pillow Book

As Alison Hennegan notes in her introduction, lesbian reading is often the process of looking for oneself, no matter how obscure, within the text. Glimpses of a familiar emotion, literary hints and winks, and old school references may be enough to make a text important from a lesbian point of view. This anthology speaks to that style of reading. Selections here are certainly farther off from the mainstream literary lesbian curriculum (especially for American readers), and that's telling of the subject matter and how it's treated. Within the selections are often the sort of subtle and obscure portraits of lesbianism that fly under the radar for most readers but for the lesbian reader act as a beacon of familiarity and proof that the show more lesbian reader is not alone.

This is a very different anthology from Lilian Faderman's [equally excellent] Chloe Plus Olivia. Faderman organizes her selections around how lesbianism is/may be perceived through history, and as such it is a fabulous collection for any reader pining for a lesbian literary inundation. Hennegan's anthology speaks to a different and less direct mood. It's an anthology for those who have ever clutched at lines and ambiguous turns of phrases in order to find themselves and to find other women like them within literature.

Both collections are excellent, and both are recommended. show less