Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir In Archives

by Amelia Possanza

Overview

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards

For readers of Saidiya Hartman and Jeanette Winterson, Lesbian Love Story is an intimate journey into the archives—uncovering the romances and role models written out of history and what their stories can teach us all about how to love

When Amelia Possanza moved to Brooklyn to build a life of her own, she found herself surrounded by queer stories: she read them on landmark placards, overheard them on the pool deck when she joined the world’s largest LGBTQ swim team, and even watched them on TV in her cockroach-infested apartment. These stories inspired her to seek out lesbians throughout history who could become her role models, in romance and in life.

Centered around seven love stories for the ages, this is Possanza’s journey into the archives to recover the personal histories of lesbians in the twentieth century: who they were, how they loved, why their stories were destroyed, and where their memories echo and live on. Possanza’s hunt takes readers from a drag king show in Bushwick to the home of activists in Harlem and then across the ocean to Hadrian’s Library, where she searches for traces of Sappho in the ruins. Along the way, she discovers her own love—for swimming, for community, for New York City—and adds her record to the archive.

At the heart of this riveting, inventive history, Possanza asks: How could lesbian love help us reimagine care and community? What would our world look like if we replaced its foundation of misogyny with something new, with something distinctly lesbian?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646221059
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	05/30/2023
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	210,957
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

A full-time book publicist and part-time writer, Amelia Possanza currently lives in Brooklyn with her cat. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, The Millions, and NPR’s Invisibilia. Lesbian Love Story is her first book.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/27/2023

In her impressive debut, Possanza stitches together personal memoir, painstaking research, and fictional imaginings with a fluid style and a sure hand. Lesbians, Possanza asserts, “invent their own systems of love”—romantic, family, friend—“even when they are at risk of losing everything,” yet remain largely ignored by history. So Possanza, determined to restore her own curdling concept of love, became a “collector of lesbians,” exhuming hidden histories to see what she and other cynics might learn from their lesbian forebears. She tracked down Mary Casal’s 1930 lesbian memoir, The Stone Wall, and learned it was written by Ruth White Fuller, who shielded her identity with a pen name. Subsequent chapters highlight Mabel Hampton, cofounder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias, ancient Greek singer Sappho (“the patron saint of today’s lesbians”), male impersonator Rusty Brown, Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa, and writer Amy Hoffman. Possanza’s sensuous prose also introduces fictive elements: in Hampton’s first encounter with her lover Lillian, Possanza imagines the two meeting “on a downtown sidewalk thatched with leaves turned gold by the alchemy of the season.” Throughout, she weaves the threads beautifully. This is an outstanding work of literary scholarship that also delivers a vulnerable, intimate portrait of its author. Agent: Sarah Levitt, Aevitas Creative Management. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Named a Most Anticipated Book by TIME, BuzzFeed, Them, Zibby's Mag, and more

"A compelling history in praise of the research archive, Possanza asks and attempts to answer, what is lesbian love?" —Emily Firetog, Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year

"Writing with empathy, wit, and imagination, Possanza constructs a personal, political, and romantic history of lesbian life and love." —The Millions, A Most Anticipated Read

"Incredible . . . Possanza’s centuries-spanning document–which melds her own story with hidden, intimate histories of drag kings and olympians, artists and activists–is a manifesto of love: of erotic love and platonic love, of familial and communal love, and maybe most importantly, self-love." —Michelle Hart, Electric Literature

"A creative, joyful approach to the queer past. Lesbian Love Story weaves together history, memoir, and theory in this refreshing work of historical imagination. A very smart love letter to lesbians across time." —Jen Manion, author of Female Husbands: A Trans History

"Amelia Possanza’s Lesbian Love Story is a tender and sensual swim through lesbian history—thoroughly researched and brought to dazzling life by Possanza’s imaginative prose." —Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer

"Lesbian Love Story cracks open a vault of queer lives that were so meaningful to dig into—sporty girls, masc forbears, illicit loves. These juicy stories are filled with pathos and inspiration, and Ameila Possanza's thrill at excavating them is personal, palpable and contagious." —Michelle Tea, author of Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of My In/Fertility

"Intimate and sexy, voraciously researched and vibrantly imagined, Amelia Possanza has given us the romantic history all lesbians deserve." —Nina LaCour, author of Yerba Buena

"Lesbian Love Story has all the vivid detail of a great novel and all the intelligence of a great study. Amelia Possanza dives into archival records of many kinds to discover what lesbians have to teach us all about love. In doing so, she recounts the stories of seven remarkable women—athletes, performers, and poets among them—explores the complexity of record keeping, especially for the disenfranchised, and reveals her own loves and longings. I was continually fascinated, frequently moved, and completely in awe of Possanza's wit, intelligence, and empathy. I can't wait to reread this outstanding, unforgettable book." —Stephen McCauley, author of My Ex-Life

From the Publisher

★ 2023-03-11
An archive of queer love and community by a talented storyteller.

“Mostly grown and living in New York City, I still rarely spotted other lesbians,” writes book publicist Possanza in her debut. “I joined a queer swim team, but it was full of gay men who didn’t recognize me.” As such, she “resolved to become a collector of lesbians.” Part personal memoir, part archival research, the book expertly weaves together stories of lesbians across time with a historian’s precision and a novelist’s pacing. Bringing together seven epic love stories across eras, ranging from the classical Greek poet Sappho and her lover Anactoria to lesbian caretakers in the AIDS crisis extending beyond romantic boundaries, Possanza cultivates a worthy collection of lesbian love stories. “I chose them because their stories are singular,” writes the author, “each a match struck against the grain of their eras until their lives burned bright, and yet they also represent the broader history of lesbians at each moment in time.” The author’s meticulous research reveals an exciting historical tapestry, encompassing Coney Island drag kings of the mid-20th century, Black lesbians in Harlem during the Great Depression, and one of the earliest female Olympians. Showing us a pantheon of role models, community organizers, and champions of progressive causes, Possanza effectively shows how lesbians are united by more than just a shared sexual identity; “they are also bound together by their ability to create safe havens in even the most hostile circumstances, buried projects that were a direct response to the systems that tried to trap and trade women.” These women filled gaps and imagined radical ways of living outside of a heteronormative system, and the author highlights their stories in full, sensual detail. In addition to chronicling the past and present, Possanza seeks a future that goes beyond “simple stereotypes” into “private intimacy and public recognition.” Throughout, the prose is warm, personal, and accessible.

Detailed and immensely readable, this is a generous history of lesbian love.

Kirkus Reviews