She has no interest in the 'normal' path of marriage and endless children, wishing mainly to paint, but is somewhat trapped in her comfortable but resented position in her brother's house. Patience is ambitious, educated, and intelligent. Straightforward Sarah is equally enamoured of plump, redheaded Patience. It is fairly unique in early lesbian fiction in its positive outlook and outcome, and the sheer joy and life that bubbles out of its pages, with the women ending up in a classic Boston Marriage.īoth women are somewhat unique and not entirely respectable, by their society's standards. They live near each other, but don't cross paths until Sarah comes to deliver some wood in the winter of 1816 Patience's scandalised sister in law takes one look at Sarah's trousers and won't let her in, so Patience, curiousity afire, does so instead and finds her heart and loins captured by this tall and graceful woman. Set in a Puritanical farming community in early 19th century New England, it follows the romance and quest for a home of two women, the painter Patience White, and the farmer, Sarah Dowling. I picked up Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller on a whim last week, and to my delight, it was not the boring, circumspect novel I was expecting, but a fun and sexy romp across colonial norms, with two delightful and distinctive (if often frustrating and less than perfect) women.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |