Girls, Visions, and Everything

It's unfortunate that most lesbian fiction follows the same formula--straight girl meets lesbian, straight girl falls in love with lesbian, straight girl deals with general homophobia while trying to love lesbian, etc etc. Thankfully the world has been graced with Schulman, who has opted not to follow this typical (and now boring) blueprint of how to write a lesbian novel. While Schulman has written heavily on the AIDS crisis (Rat Bohemia, People In Trouble) that she experienced firsthand during the 80s and 90s, this novel focuses more on lesbian friendships and relationships as the lower east side becomes more and more gentrified by those who simply couldn't give a crap about real art. Schulman, a real artist herself, uses her sharp eye and equally sharp words to create a world that is both realistic and fantastic. There is no typical straight-girl-soul-searching in this novel--instead, the reader is transported right in the middle of the protagonists world as she searches for meaning, life, adventure, and creative freedom with her friends. Girls, Visions and Everything is one of Schulman's earlier novels, so her writing style has not yet developed to the point that it's at today, but she still manages to capture tricky subjects despite how inexperienced she was at the time. I loved every minute of it, and the shortcomings, though they exist, didn't detract from the immense pleasure I got out of reading this novel. In short--it was exactly what I was looking for. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to read it again.

...only instead of San Francisco Mission dykes in the 90's you get New York City Lower East Side dykes in the 80's. Frankly, I wasn't expecting much from this book - I got it for free at a book party (I was dating a writer at the time) and it sat collecting dust on my "in case of bookless desperation" shelf for almost two years. And it's excellent. Not just for lesbians hungry for other lesbian stories but for anyone who wants to know what life was like for that particular subculture/place/time. It feels very real, and is probably more interesting in 2008 than when it was written. I only gave it 4 stars because I'm saving 5 stars for truly exceptional. This book is probably not going to change your life. But it's a great book to have in your purse for commuting: interesting, absorbing, and easy to start and stop.

A quirky novel about lesbians on the Lower East Side of New York. They fall in love, have sex with friends, imagine themselves as great American heros, work dull jobs, and endear themselves to the reader. Schulman richly describes lesbians in the context of their own community and the larger society around them. Very funny, very sexy.

This changed the way lesbians read, write and live. By taking the myth of Jack Kerouac and the American male on the highway, and adapting it to a lesbian, Sara Shulman not only situated herself within the American canon, but she took the worn out bohemian formulas and reinvigorated them.A classic in every sense.