The GLBTRT has been reviewing books and movies in its newsletter since the early 1990s. Trace the evolution of queer publishing through these historic reviews. This review was originally published in Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 1992.
Activist, essayist, and award winning poet Minnie Bruce Pratt’s strong voice speaks to us in this collection of 11 essays written in the past twelve years. Some are taken from speeches or talks she gave at Vanderbilt, Cornell, Southern Women’s Music and Comedy Festival, AfroAmerican and White-American Women’s organizing conference, the Guggenheim Museum upon accepting the Lamont poetry award, and the National Women’s Studies Conference. Others are previously published pieces, from Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South (collective run journal she helped found) and other journals.
Born and raised “Southern white Christian” in central Alabama in the segregated 1950’s and 1960’s, Pratt recounts for us the painful process of dealing with the racism and anti-Semitism inherent in her upbringing and our culture. She speaks of how she lost her two young sons, in the heat of her divorcing husband’s hate, when she came out as a lesbian and refused to deny it; and the joy of having the love and respect of those two young men now. In “I Plead Guilty to Being a Lesbian,” she and other members of LIPS affinity group describe the excitement, frustrations, and incredible joy of the October 1987 civil disobedience at the Supreme Court, protesting among other things the 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick decision so detrimental to campaigns to repeal sodomy laws.
This is an unabashed and painfully honest account of her life of self-examination, always questioning, asking the never before asked, challenging assumptions. Her writing style is expert-scholarly but not pedantic; passionate and polemical, and unpretentious.
The author was recipient of the ALA/GLTF 1991 Gay /Lesbian Book Award for her book of poetry, Crime Against Nature. I recommend this book of essays for adult collections in public and academic libraries.
Reviewed by Dana Artemis Fogg
MLS Student
Texas Woman’s University
Denton, TX