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Rating: 
Summary: Smoldering Politics
Review: Only Joan Nestle can mix a batch of essays that makes politics flame and smolder and lesbian sexual desire ignite an erotic revolution in the mind's eye. "a fragile union" is an intellectual and emotional odyssey that takes the reader from the '50s butch/fem bar culture smack in the middle of McCarthyism to 21st century assimilationist politics both left and right. Nestle's razor sharp analysis misses nothing when examining and mining the queer "community," as well as straight society's triumphs, failures and acts of kindess, both large and small--even the small undergrowth of hope that swells in both G/L/B/T activism and lesbian mouths and cunts. At sixty, Nestle's words and world brim with the intellectual and erotic power that fueled the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in the '70s, drove the writing of two collections of essays in the '80s & '90s, co-editing of a dozens books of women's writing and volumns of lesbian erotica throughout the later half of the 20th century. Get thee to the local women's bookstore and buy "a fragile union." Buy more than one and give them out as gifts of both desire and revolution.
Rating:
Summary: A Fragile Union
Review: What can I say? Joan Nestle does it again - a fabulous collection of short pieces exploring issues of lesbian sexuality. Her writing is so beautiful and evocative, she captures moments and meanings of sexual encounters and identities so well. In this collection, Nestle - an iconic femme - introduces us to her new Australian lover, who is also, in an American sense, a femme - or at least not a butch. The effect this has on Nestle's own sexual identity is explored, and this may be challenging for some past fans of Nestle's celebration of the butch- femme asthetic. Buy it, read it, you'll love it.
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