LOVING HER

by Ann Ellen Shockley ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 31, 1974

This Well of Loneliness with a happy ending economically takes on both lesbianism and interracial relationships on its double-barreled attack against two of society's leading taboos via its story of a love affair between a wealthy white woman writer named Terry and a young black pianist, Renay. They meet in the midwestern dinner club where Terry obligingly plays ""Stardust"" for sentimental aging couples in order to support herself and her daughter Denise -- (for her husband is the predictable drunken violent run-around whom she married only because he got her pregnant the night he raped her, thereby ruining her promising music career). From then on it's moonlit tides and caresses the likes of which Renay never felt before (luckily Terry is an experienced dyke), described in language generally reserved for mystic encounters with the Divine, until the inevitable hassles of husband and society (they move out of Terry's snooty high-rise into her country retreat) threaten to break up the most profound relationship since Dante saw Beatrice. Although in accordance with the dogmatic ""up"" tone of current gay novels where love eventually triumphs, in this case it does not do so without the Victorian-esque retribution of the death of the child -- nor will Renay's endless embarrassment over being called a ""lesbian"" endear this novel to its presumed audience. The less said the better on the writer's hyperbolic elegies of her protoganists' devotion versus the so-called promiscuity for nearly every other gay character, who in fact behave with at least as much decorum as the average suburban youngster.

Pub Date: July 31, 1974

ISBN: 1555533299

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bobbs-Merrill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION