Yonder at Autostraddle, where I’m a contributing writer, Casey answered the call. I’m totally smitten with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha’s work, no matter its genre, and I look forward to reading the others here (the antho QDA is already on board). Check out the list here.
It’s great to get thoughtful and lengthy reviews of one’s work. Thanks to Casey!
“There’s a lot to revel in in Weekend, just purely from a representation angle. When was the last time you read a queer novel about people in middle age, let alone a novel that has extended sex scenes featuring queer people in their 40s and 50s? Older queers getting it on feels revolutionary in and of itself, but Hamilton also features a character who is disabled and black (Ajax has a heart condition and grew up in the Bahamas), a trans masculine character who uses they pronouns (Logan), a masculine-presenting polyamorous character who uses she pronouns (Elliot), and a kinky couple (Logan and Ajax). None of this feels forced or for the sake of diversity itself, but simply a portrayal of some real people with various intersecting identities.
“As you’re probably guessing, this is a highly character and relationship driven novel. You know at the beginning that shit of many kinds is going to hit the fan for both couples. Hamilton takes you there slowly while letting you get to know all the characters, their dynamics, and histories. The only other work I can think of that has so much authentic dyke processing in it is Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For. Logan, Ajax, Joe, and Elliot talk about their gender and sexual identities (I found Ajax’s ruminations about her lesbian identity in the face of Logan’s in-flux gender identity particularly fascinating), sex, feelings, their exes, illness, and relationship practicalities.” -Casey, the Canadian lesbrarian
Here is the rest of her review:
Viscerally Real Queers, Dyke Processing, Kink, and Disability in Jane Eaton Hamilton’s novel WEEKEND
My ultra-superbo press Arsenal Pulp Press is having a 30% sale to celebrate their new website! Go peek at their groovy backlist and use this sale to replenish your stacks! Best queer publisher in North America!
I love that slowly, slowly, we build a literature about disabilities written by the disabled themselves. Pain Woman last year by Sonya Huber is one such book. Another is the upcoming Sick by Porochista Khakpour. Dorothy Palmer, well-known for her clear reports/retorts about/to UBCA, has a memoir coming out this very year.
Now here is an interview with author Kim Clark on her book A One-Handed Novel. Her narrator has MS. Can’t wait to read this.
The BBC ignited fury after having 3 able-bodied spouses on to talk about the hell of having spouses with disabilities. I have threatened to write an essay about the hell it is to have an abled spouse.
My novel Weekend with one disabled character and plenty of romance wouldn’t pass my own Bechdel Disability Test, in that it is a romance, and there’s just one character with a disability, but Clark nevertheless recommends it as a good read.
If Mandy Len Catron recommended my novel “Weekend” and Khloé Kardashian recommended Mandy’s “How To Fall In Love With Anyone,” does that mean I should figure out who Kholé Kardashian is? Or does that just mean you should read Mandy’s book?
This week How To Fall In Love With Anyone” has been released. Mandy is the author who set the NY Times’ Modern Love column on fire with her essay about “36 Questions” to make a couple fall in love with each other, a column viewed millions of times. And now there’s a whole book of her writing!
CBC wanted to know what revs Mandy’s romance engine, and “Weekend” made the cut, with a nod to its dealing with disability issues.
Hopefully Mandy will be here on the blog with a Q+A soon!
Mandy Len Catron on offbeat love stories, and the one secret to relationships that last
Lesbian Communities: Looking Backward, Looking Forward
1. Weekend by Jane Eaton Hamilton. Do you remember what it feels like to read a novel that has lesbian lives, lesbian bodies, lesbian minds thoughtfully and carefully rendered by a writer of extraordinary talent? If you feel like it has been a long time since you read a novel like that, pick up Jane Eaton Hamilton’s Weekend (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016). Examining two lesbian couples, their romances, their conflicts, and their lives, Weekend reminds me how lesbian writers render lesbian characters with extraordinary grace, humanity, and insight.
Weekend, Jane Eaton Hamilton
Trouble the Water, Derrick Austin
The Angel of History, Rabih Alameddine
Imagine Me Gone, Adam Haslett
Boy Erased, Garrard Conley
Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera
After Disasters, Viet Dinh
Black Wave, Michelle Tea
Small Beauty, Jia Qing Wilson-Yang
The Wonder, Emma Donoghue
If I Was Your Girl, Meredith Russo
Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout, Laura Jane Grace
Desert Boys, Chris McCormick
Eleanor and Hick, Susan Quinn
Another Brooklyn, Jacqueline Woodson
I’m so glad to see After Ellen managing to continue after their status changed in September. I surely never thought anyone would find cause to put me and Barack Obama on the same page. In their year end wrap-up, After Ellen via Beth Reynolds calls WEEKEND “The Book.” (All the same, I’d probably rather be “The Writer” since Glennon Doyle Melton sounds like she’s making money hand over fist. 🙂 jk)
In Ontario colour coordinated with toenails…
In Toronto…
And wherever this is…
Penny on Goodreads says, “Jesus Christ, what a gorgeous prose!
And all the queerness! My god. The boi dykes, the kinksters, the dis-identifiers, the non-normatives, the sweet dreamers, the loose-talkers, the sweet lovers, the broken hearted. Gotta love ’em all.”
Book Riot guides you to 9 new titles for June…
Me with WEEKEND’s editor, Susan Safyan, at the launch this week.
Today WEEKEND was generously reviewed in the Vancouver Sun by Tom Sandborn.
“…a tour de force…
Often enough, Hamilton suggests, this post liberation reality, while obviously a huge improvement on the fever swamps of homophobia and oppression that preceded it, is full of ordinary human heartbreak and betrayal, sorrow, tedium and flawed, triumphant love.
That recognition, and the lapidary prose Hamilton uses to embody and dramatize it make Weekend a remarkable, intricate and mature work of art.”
Eaton Hamilton 