Chicken

by Paula Martinac

It wasn`t even a chic street corner, certainly nothing you`d write about in an arch novel of manners, but there Lynn was, on that unfashionable intersection, dumped by her lover of 13 years because they were no longer `enlarging themselves`--like the road to bliss was stuffing yourself with rich Belgian chocolate. What`s a lonely urban girl to do except completely fall apart and into every bed she can find? Lynn quickly finds herself sleeping with two much younger women, one of whom just happens to be the daughter of a famous feminist. Sometimes the only way to survive utter desolation and despair is to look at the bright side --three hours of sleep a night due to competing lovers sexual demands, the privilege of ghostwriting a book for a woman who carves large wooden sculptures of women`s genitalia and an ex `enlarging` you to become the ten-year-old you always wanted to be.

Genres: Queer, Fiction, LGBT

220 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

About the author

I'm the author of seven novels, including the most recent Dear Miss Cushman (12/7/21); Testimony (2021); Clio Rising (2019), Gold Medal Finalist, Northeast Region, Independent Publisher Book Awards; The Ada Decades (2017), a finalist for the 2018 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction; and the Lambda Literary Award-winning Out of Time, which was a finalist for the American Library Association Gay and Lesbian Book Award. I've also published three nonfiction books on LGBT themes; authored plays that were produced in Pittsburgh, New York, and D.C.; and written an award-winning full-length screenplay. I'm a lecturer in the undergraduate creative writing program at UNC Charlotte and a writing instructor with Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts. In 2019, I was lucky to receive fellowships from the Arts and Science Council (Charlotte/Mecklenburg County) and the North Carolina Arts Council, which helped me write my upcoming novel, Dear Miss Cushman (2021).

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has everything that you're looking for in a 1990's lesbian romance - cultural references, mid-life crises, AIDS, love triangles, sex - but not a whole lot of life lessons. So it's not deep - so what? It's solidly written with a narrator who is amusing to listen to, and characters who, while being caricatures, are still fun.

It is definitely a snapshot of the 90's though, so if that sort of thing is more annoying than amusing, you might not be interested. Computers and internet dating are still novelties, AIDS is a big deal (well, it still is, but it's way more mainstream now), etc. Seems so quaint to those of us in our 20's today, we who are cynical and jaded.

Actually, on that note, there was a great little passage where the older woman tells the younger one how much better the younger one has it because society is way more accepting now, and the younger one calls bullshit. I liked it because I think that's what we will be doing to the adorable little lezzies who are in their teens now when they get old enough to date and we start feeling obsolete. That part was really timeless.