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.
Dear Reader, if you like your books to have frequent salutations like this and if you like to be tossed about in a melange of myth, legend and folklore of rabbits, witches and hexes, of an interspersed fantasy which could be labeled ”Robertain Bunnyland,” and then have it occasionally woven together with what must be a semiautobiographical story of a lover dying of AIDS, then this may be the read for you.
However, I offer a word of caution. While it may have been a true cathartic effort for the author to deal with the tragedies surrounding us, it is often presented here in cloyingly grating and cliched expressions. Phrases such as “‘Oh dear, sweet little bunny, this is the first bit of comfort I’ve had in who knows how long!'” and “falling apart at the seams” are used more often than the sometimes clever and vivid writing that does appear. The bunny theme was evidently chosen here because the lovers were grasping out for larger-life meanings and because Chinese mythology holds that “the hare is the symbol of invertsnobody knows why- and is considered their patron.” This reader did not get swept into the effort. Larger fiction collections could consider this as a marginal possibility.
Reviewed by Reed Coats
Fairfax County Public Library
Fairfax, VA