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LESBIANISM MADE EASY

Name: LESBIANISM MADE EASY
Author: Helen Eisenbach
ISBN: 0-517-70475-7

by Helen Eisenbach ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 1996

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An insider's sophomoric paean to the lesbian way of life. Former QW editor and novelist Eisenbach (Loonglow, 1988) seems to have a lot going for her in her latest literary/comic endeavor. She has a firm grasp on the ins and outs of lesbianism—lesbian chic, lesbian sex, lesbian fantasy—and a subtle understanding of where truth and stereotype converge. Her subject she rightly if mockingly points out, is a source of fascination to the populace at large and heterosexual men in particular. Unfortunately, Eisenbach just can't sustain the humor that is the raison d'àtre of her book. Not that she doesn't have moments. She opines that S&M, for example, is an option ``for those who don't receive enough sadomasochistic thrills simply by being female in any city in the United States, the corporate world at large, or certain department stores during major clearance seasons.'' And she provides alternatives to the standard altar-boy/priest paradigm, such as ``First Lady/`friendly' journalist,'' ``Republican socialite/Whoopi Goldberg,'' or ``Anyone (except Madonna)/Camille Paglia.'' There are also some poignant moments in her ``Woman of Your Dreams'' series, where Eisenbach imagines various scenarios of women meeting women. In one, the woman of your dreams, at whom you've been staring, actually comes over to you in the airport, smiling, and in a devastating European accent asks, ``Could you be telling me, em, where is this Delta Airline? I am must meeting my husband.'' Most of the time, however, Eisenbach's jokes are really nothing more than one-liners stretched beyond their breaking point. And the mock-instructional tone quickly wears on the nerves. At best, some erotic/romantic moments and inside jokes for lesbian readers. (Author tour)

Pub Date: June 19, 1996

ISBN: 0-517-70475-7

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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IN MY PLACE

by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992

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From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)