Sunday, October 29, 2006

I Read "Sisters"--- I Think

Posted by olvlzl

Remember when someone posted what was said to be Lynne Cheney's lesbian novel "Sisters" on the internet? It was back when this self-suppressed novel- and seldom has the term been more charitably assigned - was coming to light. Risking the need to wash out my eyes with soap afterwards I read it. I'm a sworn enemy of Lynn Cheney and her Kaffee Klatch of Kulture warriors of long standing.

Now I wish I'd saved it because it's nowhere to be seen. It disappeared shortly after. Not running to the five-hundred or so dollars a copy sold for at e-bay during that period it was the only way to see what the ultra-right-wing doyenne of Republican efforts to save Western culture might have produced by way of a lesbian romance.

I wasn't wowed. By the time I read the chapter entitled "Miracle Whip" I was certain that what was posted was a spoof. As spoof it wasn't bad, as serious writing, pee-ewwww!. But there were people who claimed it was the real thing, absent a paper copy who knows?

Today it's not only the book that isn't to be read but apparently it's the tome that dare not speak its name. On with Blitzer the other night, Lynne was mighty eager to change the topic to one of her cut and paste jobs instead.

But according to this story, you might get a chance to see it on the boards.

Lynne Cheney's still-remembered 1981 lesbian romance novel, "Sisters," was feted Monday night in a special performance by the "Lynne Cheney Players" - to the delight of an audience of liberal East Village types.

Yeah, I know it's Lloyd Groves. But it is fun. Notice this:

Choice scenes adapted from "Sisters" included one in which two female characters write to each other: "Let us go away together, away from the anger and the imperatives of men. We shall find ourselves a secluded bower where they dare not venture. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement."

One of Cheney's characters swoons to a Sapphic love letter: "How well her words describe our love - or the way it would be if we could remove all impediments, leave this place, and join together ... Then our union would be complete. Our lives would flow together, twin streams merging into a single river."

Maybe the book was intended as a lesbian turn off. How else would you explain a right-wing, cultural tattle-tale writing something like this?