The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories

Alisa Surkis &
Monica Nolan

Okay, so lesbians and horses, and a cover straight off a fifties dime novel. How can you possibly go wrong? Let me count the ways, you wretched thing.

I can't, and probably don't want to, count the number of said dime novels I've read, nor the time I've wasted on them. Some achieve a kind of unintentional, campy humor, and the blurb on the back promises that this is the angle Surkis and Nolan took with The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories. Really, I had high hopes. But instead of humor brought on by the lunkheaded and unthinking actions of the protagonists, what emerged from this book was relentless, unending political diatribe. Somehow I knew when I got to the words “oppressed by the Patriarchy” I wasn't going to be going anywhere with this. When two Depression-era teens get into debates about the various faults of marxism and capitalism, it got worse. Stories will occasionally stop for a quick direct-to-reader chat about the evils of (fill in the blank, all the usual suspects are here).

So I guess it makes sense for me, since I would seem to be a member of the Patriarchy thanks to possession of outdoor plumbing, to oppress this book. But, I hold no position of power, so unfortunately for the authors (since, after all, oppression is the quickest route to the bestseller lists these days), the worst I can do is give it an awful review, one which it quite richly deserves. Like the pseudo-fiction of other writers who care about nothing but making a point, the material herein is okay if you feel like reading endless political dialectic. But that doesn't make it art.