In preparing for my trip to Mexico, I stockpiled a bunch of trashy lesbian novels to take with me. One of the first was The Spanish Pearl by Catherine Friend.

The premise was simple – modern lesbian is transported back in time to 11th century Spain where she falls in love with a man who has a secret. The “secret” was not only obvious – it was stated plainly on the back of the book and in the description on Amazon. The “man” Kate falls in love with is really…gasp! shock!…a woman.

Okay, so I bought the book knowing this and thinking, cool, that would be the first few chapters and then there’d be a story. It was apparent about fifteen seconds after they met that “he” was a she, so I kept waiting for the rest of the story. Only, no, that WAS the story. The whole story. That was it. There was some violence (not enough) and some rape (plenty, thanks) and some internal and external medieval politics (about the right amount) but the main point was Kate figuring out slowly, painfully and awkwardly what any reader knew going into the book.

But you know, that wasn’t really that bad – just sort of “buh?” What was bad was Kate’s insistence on relating to the people around her in 21st century American terms. For instance, in one scene, she berates Louis for killing two men – two men who would have raped Kate, mind you. I would have been kissing Louis and kicking the corpses, but not Kate. She was furious that Louis stooped to violence instead of what – talking their way out of it? If this was day one in the story, I might have accepted it, but it was well into the story. And the reason they were in that situation was also Kate’s fault in the first place after several really bad decisions.

What was also sort of strange was Kate’s obsession about a child she met for less than an hour and her use of that child as an excuse to return to the future. And last, what tanked the book utterly for me was that there’s a sequel. The miserable girlfriend from the future comes back to the past to “rescue” Kate. Thanks. I’ll pass.

For fun, I often read Amazon reviews after I finish a book. To my shock everyone loved this book – they thought it funny and lyrical and a love letter to Spain. No one wrote, “I thought Kate was an ass.” Perhaps I should write a review there, because I totally did think that. ^_^;

On the positive side, Catherine Friend writes well. I don’t think I flinched at any portion of the book (as I did several times during my attempt to read another lesbian novel recently – whole sentences had me cringing. I gave up after the first chapter.) So for that alone, The Spanish Pearl is above average.

Ratings:

Story – 5
Characters – 5
Yuri – 9
Service – not on a bet, but the rape would suffice I imagine – 2

Overall – 5

If you aren’t looking for plot so much as a series of crises set around a relationship, it’s not really that bad a book. And with a blue ocean eating white sand, while you drink a brightly colored drink, you could definitely do worse. But you can also do better.

I know I’m not the only person to have marathoned a gazillion pulp novels and thought, “I gotta write me one of those.” But Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan had an even better idea. They thought “I gotta write me ALL of those.” And so they did.

The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories is a completely unsubtle, totally over the top parody of every lesbian pulp plotline ever. From wartime barracks hijinks, to freckle-faced girls on the farm to the sleazy criminal underworld, with side trips into the depression dust bowl, the shtetl of the Lower East Side in New York and a new age womyn’s commune. And horses. Oh yes, every story includes a horse, sometimes under preposterous circumstances. All of the horses are beautiful in a nearly sexual way, except for Herschel the Wonder Horse who was definitely the best – and smartest – character in the book.

If you’re new to lesbian pulp novels, this book might not make a huge impression on you, but after reading some of the best of the breed (Women’s Barracks) and some of the silliest (Intimate Story of a Lesbian) you just know *exactly* what these authors are parodying.

I really can’t express how funny this book is, so I’m not going to try. I’m going to let it speak for itself. Here are a few choice quotes from some of the stories:

“Yes, I can be useful, woman though I am! Even because of the woman I am – a woman not like other women. But how not like other women – what kind of a woman am I? Will I meet other women like me, who can tell me what kind of a woman I am? Or will it be a woman unlike myself, who will show me what kind of woman I can be?”

“The whole car was stuffed so full of their belongings, the clothing, farm-tools and the bits of furniture they’d been able to take from the farm in Oklahoma after the bank foreclosed, that there was hardly any room for Ma, Pa, Uncle Jo-Jo, the five Budd children and Grandma Jennie.”

This story had the added charm of things like, “You won’t really understand dialectic materialism until you’ve heard it explained by Jack Rosenblum, who you may know as Pedro the Singing Bandit.”

And here’s Herschel the Wonder Horse, known as “Johhny Apple”: “…they had been selling fruit outside the yeshiva on 14th Street. Some of the young scholars were arguing over the Talmud, and one of them had quoted a passage incorrectly. He had paid no attention to Johnny Apple’s indignant snorts, and not until an overripe peach knocked his yarmulke off did he realize his error.”

Perhaps these don’t seem funny to you (especially the bits in, say, Yiddish) but I was laughing like a howler monkey. I read these, and many other lines out loud as we sat and stared at the Caribbean eat the spit of sand we were sitting on.

Book funny. Go read. And for heaven’s sake, please don’t take it seriously, like the first reviewer on the Amazon webpage did! It’s BROAD satire. Pun intended.

Ratings:

Overall – perfect beach reading.