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Long Time Passing: Lives of Older Lesbians
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200 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 7, 2019
Major CW for cancer, also alcoholism
March 22, 2024
This was quite interesting.
The quality of writing across each of the stories differed and fluctuated to a certain extent, as did my interest in the lives of the women recounting their stories. I found most interesting the ones about the soldiers and those women whose lives I could place in a historical framework/context.
One thing that jumped out to me immediately was that one of the women - Barbara Tymbios - was, at one point, in a relationship with Lorena Hicock, the reporter who had a longstanding love affair and intimate friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt! A shocking bit of syncronicity/serendipity! As soon as I saw the name, I did a double-take, and I had to check to see if it was the same woman, which was easy, since all I had to do was look over at one of the books on my desk (I started it but haven't gotten around to finishing it), Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, and, sure enough, the name was the same, plus the details seemed to match, as is seen in the following passage:
"A friend of Joy's who worked for the Times, Maria Saurez, introduced me to Lorena Hickock at a party. I had an affair with her. I met a lot of newspaper people. She would take me to restaurants that literary people frequentd. This was in the thirties. . . I never loved her but I found her extremely interesting. She knew a lot. I enjoyed conversations with her. She wanted me as a lover, not as a friend. When I ended the relationship . . ." (205)
Fascinating, isn't it?
Altogether, then, this was an alright book. Not fantastic, but definitely interesting and of historical value.
.
.
.
One thing to note, less about the book itself and more about this review/my reading the book: I did not read the appendix. I began it, but got immediately bored, and it doesn't seem very relevant to me, anyway. I stopped reading at page 222. The appendix is made up of several articles, one on women's health/eating healthily and making healthy choices as a middle-aged woman, one about an association for aging lesbians and gay men, and one about making wise legal decisions as an older lesbian. None seemed especially relevant to me, as someone who is still a teenager, and the writing style wasn't exciting enough for me to tough it out, either. I would still count this as having read the book, since the amount of pages the appendix makes up isn't that great, I would consider it similar to not reading the collection of notes at the end of a nonfiction book, and the appendix is sort of adjacent to the book, not really the same as the rest of the content of the book, which is the recountings of the lives of older lesbians. This might seem a bit of an overreaction on my part to write such a detailed defense of my being able to consider this book "read", but I take reading books pretty seriously, and I don't allow myself to mark as "read" any books I DNF or don't finish the last pages of. This book isn't so much an exception as a situation where reading all the unnecessary bits at the end isn't mandated for me to mark the book as read and still respect myself as a reader and Goodreads-user.
ANYWAY!
That's it.
The quality of writing across each of the stories differed and fluctuated to a certain extent, as did my interest in the lives of the women recounting their stories. I found most interesting the ones about the soldiers and those women whose lives I could place in a historical framework/context.
One thing that jumped out to me immediately was that one of the women - Barbara Tymbios - was, at one point, in a relationship with Lorena Hicock, the reporter who had a longstanding love affair and intimate friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt! A shocking bit of syncronicity/serendipity! As soon as I saw the name, I did a double-take, and I had to check to see if it was the same woman, which was easy, since all I had to do was look over at one of the books on my desk (I started it but haven't gotten around to finishing it), Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, and, sure enough, the name was the same, plus the details seemed to match, as is seen in the following passage:
"A friend of Joy's who worked for the Times, Maria Saurez, introduced me to Lorena Hickock at a party. I had an affair with her. I met a lot of newspaper people. She would take me to restaurants that literary people frequentd. This was in the thirties. . . I never loved her but I found her extremely interesting. She knew a lot. I enjoyed conversations with her. She wanted me as a lover, not as a friend. When I ended the relationship . . ." (205)
Fascinating, isn't it?
Altogether, then, this was an alright book. Not fantastic, but definitely interesting and of historical value.
.
.
.
One thing to note, less about the book itself and more about this review/my reading the book: I did not read the appendix. I began it, but got immediately bored, and it doesn't seem very relevant to me, anyway. I stopped reading at page 222. The appendix is made up of several articles, one on women's health/eating healthily and making healthy choices as a middle-aged woman, one about an association for aging lesbians and gay men, and one about making wise legal decisions as an older lesbian. None seemed especially relevant to me, as someone who is still a teenager, and the writing style wasn't exciting enough for me to tough it out, either. I would still count this as having read the book, since the amount of pages the appendix makes up isn't that great, I would consider it similar to not reading the collection of notes at the end of a nonfiction book, and the appendix is sort of adjacent to the book, not really the same as the rest of the content of the book, which is the recountings of the lives of older lesbians. This might seem a bit of an overreaction on my part to write such a detailed defense of my being able to consider this book "read", but I take reading books pretty seriously, and I don't allow myself to mark as "read" any books I DNF or don't finish the last pages of. This book isn't so much an exception as a situation where reading all the unnecessary bits at the end isn't mandated for me to mark the book as read and still respect myself as a reader and Goodreads-user.
ANYWAY!
That's it.
October 29, 2022
Published in 1986, I re-read to see how older lesbians have changed. Not much I can see. A series of interviews with lesbians of various backgrounds. Complaints of isolation and that "older" are not respected, sometimes even acknowledged by younger, energetic lesbians in lesbian bars, organizations, etc. But how they have survived and lived.
July 13, 2023
I'm a 30 year old lesbian in the texas bible belt and desperate for ancestors like me. This book is the holy book of lesbian aging. It is telling true stories so there are mentions and descriptions of SA, predatory relationships, racism, and outdated mindsets. But all in all an incredibly wise collection.
February 7, 2010
This book is a collection of wonderful stories from older Lesbians. I thoroughly enjoyed the stories that these women told, each as individual as the person telling it. It is a great way to get a perspective on what women before us (the book was published in 1986) felt and lived through.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews