The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell

by William Klaber

One day in 1855 Lucy Lobdell cut her hair, changed clothes, and went off to live her life as a man. By the time it was over, she was notorious. The New York Times thought her worthy of a lengthy obituary that began “Death of a Modern Diana . . . Dressed in Man’s Clothing She Wins a Girl’s Love.” The obit detailed what the Times knew of Lucy’s life, from her backwoods upbringing to the dance school she ran disguised as a man, “where she won the love of a young lady scholar.” But that was just the start of the trouble; the Times did not know about Lucy’s arrest and trial for the crime of wearing men’s clothes or her jailbreak engineered by her wife, Marie Perry, to whom she had been married by an unsuspecting judge.

Lucy lived at a time when women did not commonly travel unescorted, carry a rifle, sit down in bars, or have romantic liaisons with other women. Lucy did these things in a personal quest—to work and be paid, to wear what she wanted, and to love whomever she cared to. But to gain those freedoms she had to endure public scorn and wrestle with a sexual identity whose vocabulary had yet to be invented. Lucy promised to write a book about it all, and over the decades, people have searched for that account. Author William Klaber searched also until he decided that the finding would have to be by way of echoes and dreams. This book is Lucy’s story, told in her words as heard and recorded by an upstream neighbor.

It has been named a Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor Book for 2014.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, LGBT, Historical, Adult, Book Club, 19th Century

304 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2013

About the author

William Klaber is a part-time journalist who lives with his wife Jean in upstate New York. In 1990 he joined a group of researchers who were going through the newly opened LAPD files concerning the murder of Robert Kennedy who had been murdered in Los Angeles in 1968 moments after winning the California presidential primary. A young gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, was caught at the scene, but despite of the seeming open and shut nature of the case, the police files were kept secret. Why?

What the researchers found answered that question, and in 1992 the group filed a formal Request to the LA County Grand Jury asking for a special prosecutor to investigate the LAPD for “willful and corrupt misconduct” in its investigation of the Kennedy murder. The Request was accompanied by 800 pages of exhibits drawn from the files which documented the LAPD’s “destruction of evidence, falsification of evidence and coercion of witnesses.”

When the Grand Jury failed to act, Mr. Klaber went back to New York where he produced a public radio documentary that featured startling audio tapes that had been hidden in the police files. The one-hour documentary was titled The RFK Tapes, and it played on 160 public radio stations across the country. So compelling was this new material that Time magazine gave the program a full-page review. A book offer from St. Martin’s Press followed, and Professor Philip Melanson joined Mr. Klaber in this endeavor. Shadow Play came out in 1997 and it explored the many newly opened questions surrounding the Kennedy murder. Since 1997 there have been a handful of significant developments in the case, and these are fully explored in the new edition of Shadow Play: The Unsolved Murder of Robert Kennedy.

Reviews

[Margitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucy Lobdell lived in an era when anyone outside the norm were fodder for the asylum. As a young girl it was obvious that she was not like her siblings, and in later life she proved them right by living as a man. The 1800s were not an era for independent women. Neither was it a place for women loving other women.

This story, based on a true life story, is a sad tale to read in 2015 and one can only wonder how devastating this young woman's life must have been in those times. The author captured the essence of the times perfectly in this fast-reading, heartbreaking story.

A captivating read!

[Sherrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad I selected The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell to read and review. Too little has been written about women who were willing to take the risk to live out their lives in spite of what society demanded of them. Lucy Ann Lobdell was one of those women.

As mentioned above, Lucy's story literally dropped into William Klaber's hands. Although Lucy had stated her intentions to write an account of her adventures posing as a man, no such record was ever found.

“I intend to write a book in which I shall give a full account of my adventures whilst I adoped male attire.”

—Lucy Lobdell writing in 1855

The result of Klaber's continued research into Lucy Lobdell's life and the information already gathered by the local historian is a mixture of truth and fiction compiled in an extraordinary biography/memoir. Klaber has managed to thread together the truth found in the satchel and "echoes and dreams" to flesh out the unknown portions of Lucy's rebellion.

Lucy's husband walked out on her and left her in dire straits. Pregnant, Lucy moved back home to her parents and siblings. Giving birth to a daughter, Helen, soon after, Lucy finds herself with no means of supporting herself and the child. Observant and clever, Lucy quickly saw that in a man's world she could make a decent wage IF ONLY she were a man. Lucy executes a well-considered plan to leave her family and home and yes, her daughter, to assume life as a man. Casting aside her female attire, Lucy dons menswear and sets off on in search of a new life.

Not only does she find a higher wage, Lucy envisions plans for purchasing land, building a home, and bringing Helen to live with her. In order to do this and under the guise of living as man, Lucy teaches school, forms a dance school, instructs students in violin studies, and inserts herself into society. Lucy is a woman of determination, strong will and a skin thick enough to ward off the judgments soon made against her both physical and emotional. Despite the difficulties she encounters, Lucy does not return to her life as a woman, refusing to wear dresses and continuing her life dressed in men's clothing.

Klaber tastefully draws Lucy's character for his reader into a near palpable reality. I cheered Lucy on in her difficult times, and often questioned her logic in her portrayal as a man in a world and society so unaccepting of her efforts to make a life for herself and her child. The pages could not be turned quickly enough.

To tell you more will spoil the book for you, dear reader, and I cannot with a clear conscience do that. If you are a lover of biography and memoir and historical fiction, you should consider addingThe Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell to your library.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where I got the book: review copy received from the publisher.

Update 3/3/15: My feature article for the Historical Novel Society is online.

I’m assigned to write a feature about this book for the Historical Novel Society (I’ll publish the link here when it’s up) and normally I don’t post a review of the book before I do the HNS piece. Sometimes I don’t post a review at all for these feature pieces, just the link to the feature—that generally means I have some reservations about the book that would look awkward next to the HNS article, which is journalistic rather than critical in nature. In those cases, since I was provided with a free copy for the purposes of writing an article, NOT a review, the article takes precedence. Does that make sense?

In this case, however, I feel I can recommend this novel heartily enough that I’d like to talk about it now, and get some more of you reading it. The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell (I’m afraid I find that title way too cumbersome) is a fictionalized memoir based on a real life. The author’s story of how the book came to be, related in his Afterword, makes pretty interesting reading, especially as he was living in a house directly related to the story at the time. Interestingly, a couple of minutes on Google informed me that there’ve been other article and/or books about Lucy aka Joseph (aha! I hear you saying), including a 2012 non-fiction by a distant relative.

This is one of those instances when I feel like putting the book in front of the author and insisting he underline all the bits that were “real,” i.e. supported by the historical record. But let’s talk about the story as shown in the novel first. As the story begins (undated but I’m assuming in the early 1850s), Lucy has just taken on the persona of Joseph Lobdell, traveling to a distant (for the time) town to look for work and escape the pressure to remarry to support herself and her daughter Helen. She’s (and I’m going to use the female pronoun MOSTLY because her female name is used in the title) already shown a preference for men’s clothing when hunting to contribute to the family’s food supply, but now she cuts her hair and makes a serious bid for the much higher level of freedom a man could have in the era. She finds work, friends and community in her new life, and embarks on a romance with Lydia, who thinks she’s a man. Before she has to face the dilemma of telling Lydia the truth, discovery prompts her to flee.

Her next bid for freedom takes her out to the then-frontier of Minnesota, where she survives the rigors of winter and eventually manages to buy a piece of land. This time, disovery leads to rape and then wider discovery as Lucy ends up on trial for wearing men’s clothing—this, I presume, was what got her into the history books and attracted considerable media attention, if I can put it that way.

The final passage of Lucy’s life covered by the novel is her arrival in Delhi to look for Helen, whom she left in a poorhouse some years before. She doesn’t find her daughter but she does, eventually, find a new love in Marie—who this time knows she’s a woman. It’s their struggle to live as man and wife that shapes the real tragedy of the story, and begins Lucy’s slide toward what was apparently a sufficient level of mental illness to put her in insane asylums, where she spent the last thirty-plus years of her life.

Klaber seems to come down on the side of Lucy’s having had some degree of mental illness from her youth, and she definitely comes across as odd at times in the novel. There were periods of her life when she lived completely isolated from society or in the company only of Native Americans, and the photo Klaber uses in his Afterword shows her dressed in feathers and beads, her hair braided Native American-style. (There are some interesting allusions to the frontier wars in this novel, but the author wisely only touches on them since they’re not the main theme of the story.)

For me, the million-dollar question here is: Was Lucy mentally ill or were her efforts to live as she wanted perceived as mental illness by her contemporaries? If she’d been born now, would she have lived as a perfectly sane and happy transgendered person, or possibly as a lesbian (I’m basing that thought on the idea that her insistence on living as a man could have been symbolic of her sexual preference rather than a desire to BE a man, although the novel leans more heavily on a transgender preference. I could probably use some discussion with transgendered or lesbian readers about that particular issue, as I’ll admit being a straight female doesn’t give me much insight).

Two huge issues with discussing questions of gender identity with relation to nineteenth-century people are 1. the lack of any vocabulary at the time with which to talk about such things so that everything’s euphemistic and/or comes across as plain wrong to 21st-century eyes, and 2. my inability to understand the strain under which any person born into these circumstances must have been under. Would it have been enough to have driven Lucy insane? I suspect it might have been (or, as mentioned above, that Lucy was never actually insane), and I strongly wish that Kaber had followed Lucy into those asylums instead of summing up her later life as he did. Which is why I knocked off a star.

As a novel-reading experience, this was pretty darn good. Excellent writing, pacing, dialogue and all the rest; lovely editing; nicely packaged. It’s written in a literary style which does, occasionally, make it hard to follow the factual elements of the story, but on the other hand lends enormously to the vividness with which Lucy’s life played out in my mind. I got a real feel for the era, too, a picture of a growing America that was still inventing itself in bits and pieces. The cast of minor characters ran the whole gamut of reactions to Lucy from understanding and tolerance to outright rejection, which was, I think, a realistic guess at how things probably were. Then as now, people’s reactions to the different-from-them probably said more about themselves than about the object of their interest.

All in all, a highly recommended read, especially if you’re drawn to nineteenth-century American topics or to lesbian/transgender history. But you could also be a general reader of historical fiction or of biography (if not driven mad by the what’s-real-and-what-isn’t subtext that always goes on in my own mind when reading biographical fiction) and get a lot out of this novel.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I will reference Lucy Ann Lobdell as Joseph in this review. My feeling for this is because she spent the majority of her life going by that name.*


This book grabbed my interest within the first few pages. A solid 4 out of 5, rounded down from 4 1/2.

In the opening pages is written, "I intend to write a book in which I shall give a full account of my adventures whilst I adopted male attire." - Lucy Ann Lobdell, writing in 1855

The author William Klaber goes on to explain in his own words that the memoir is a work of fiction, layered with non-fictional events and characters and why he chose to write the story in such a way. It's a memoir from the eyes of Joseph through first person narrative. I both enjoyed and respected this approach.

It's fast paced throughout, often jumping from day to day or week to week or even year to year within a few paragraphs. Some of the chapters happened too fast for my liking and at times it lost feeling because of it. That said, I did get used to the pacing by the end and I also now understand why Mr. Klaber chose to write it like this.

Through his research of Joseph Lobdell, the many articles he referenced ended up being contradictory to each other yet he did a discerning job of bringing the story to the reader. He undoubtedly put a great deal of effort into uncovering as much truth as possible of the details of Joseph's life. All in all, it's a highly valuable book and I'm very glad I read it.

[Orsolya · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the year 2014, women dressing as men are of no consequence. However, 130+ years ago, Lucy Lobdell’s decision to don men’s clothing in order to set upon her own fortune was beyond scandalous. William Klaber meshes this real woman with some fiction in, “The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell”.

Although the topic of Lucy Lobdell becoming Joseph Lobdell is without a doubt fascinating; Klaber’s novel is sadly less so. The issue lies purely with poor execution and a writing style which doesn’t go higher than the YA rung on the book ladder. “The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell” fails to ignite as the story follows too much of the “I did this and then that”- structure versus truly allowing the reader to live through Lucy/Joseph. Although the plot is interesting; the storytelling is extremely flat and demonstrates Klaber’s lack of novel-writing experience.

Klaber falls short of keeping events flowing smoothly with consistency. It is clear that he had a lot of ready facts concerning Lucy/Joseph’s life which he wanted to enthusiastically include but he didn’t mesh out the plot evenly. The story has hills and valleys akin to a rowdy roller coaster with too many characters, tangents, and subplots involved; yet with none panning out. In effect, “The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell” is tiresome and frustrating.

Also frustrating is an absence of adequate inner dialogue, conflict, and struggle within Lucy/Joseph’s head. The story has such potential to explore the feelings of a female pretending to be a male in areas such as sexuality, psychology, and feminism. Klaber hardly even grazes the surface of these with only a few considerations made which are quite disappointing.

“The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell” improves halfway through with Klaber’s writing becoming less chaotic and more detailed. Regardless, the novel would still not be described as a page turner. Historically, the settings feel authentic, albeit slightly forced. It doesn’t help that the novel suffers from some text/grammar errors.

The climax, which was certainly a poignant point in this real-life figure’s life; doesn’t elicit any emotion. The potential is lost as the delivery lacks energy. Afterwards, “The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell stumbles even more as it feels like Klaber lost both his footing and his energy. The storytelling picks up again, but with the staleness having already set in; doesn’t fully recover.

The conclusion of “The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell” has a saving grace of presenting Lucy/Joseph’s mental deterioration which is the only point at which the novel can be deemed as “strong”. Otherwise, the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying. However, Klaber obliges the reader with information on the lives of the characters after the novel’s depiction and also includes a section on how he became involved ( Note: some readers may be deterred by the fact that Klaber asserts to having channeled Lobdell’s spirit).

Aside from definitely raising an interest in Lucy/Joseph; “The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell” fails to deliver. The novel feels empty and devoid of the emotion it could have packed. Thusly, the novel is only encouraged for either YA readers or those seeking a light, quick (1-2 days) read.

[William Klaber · Rating 5 out of 5]

One day in 1855 Lucy Lobdell changes clothes and runs off to Honesdale PA, where as Joseph, the Professor of Dance, she opens a dancing school. The young ladies of town take interest in this handsome young man who seems to know what a girl likes, not like the usual louts about town. Then, one of them, Lydia Watson, the beautiful and rebellious daughter of a prominent family, falls in love with the dance teacher. And Lucy, not fully understanding what is happening, falls in love with the Lydia. And thus the trouble begins...

I had lived along Basket Creek for twenty years and had never heard of Lucy Lobdell. Then one day the town historian, Jack Niflot, asked me to meet him for lunch. There Jack told me the amazing story of a woman who had lived along the Basket before the Civil War, a woman who had cut her hair and went off to live her life as a man. Jack showed me a satchel filled with letters and articles about Lucy, things he had collected over decades. Jack said he had always thought to write a book about Lucy but no longer felt up to it. He handed me the satchel. That was a dozen years ago.

I knew right away that I wanted to write about Lucy. I went around the country digging up more details about her travels and adventures. I was some good distance into my nonfiction book when it occurred to me that, no matter how hard I tried, the book was destined to hollow. I could pretty much trace where Lucy went and what she did, but the very essence of what would be interesting—what was said, what was she thinking—all of that was lost to time. Two year’s work went into the trash. I then set out to “find,” to bring to life, the memoir that Lucy promised to write. But how?

I live on land that Lucy used to hunt, so I walked around in the forest. I sat on a large rock overlooking a hidden pond, a rock that surely she had sat on. I called to her. Hearing no satisfactory response, I decided to start in on my own with the hope she would catch up later on. The reader should be warned. Lucy may not be who you think she is, or who you want her to be. She is certainly not a modern woman dressed up in antique clothes, tooling around the nineteenth century and filling us in on all the skinny. She was a woman who had been born into simple circumstances in upstate New York in 1829. Lucy was smart; she was brave, but she was also naïve. She put on men’s clothes so she could earn men’s wages, but that switch brought changes she hadn’t dreamt of, forcing her to question her God, fight for her sanity, and struggle with a sexual identity whose vocabulary had yet to be invented. Lucy got herself into all kinds of trouble and along the way she made some outrageous choices. It has taken a long time for her voice to ring true in my head. Someone else might go into the forest and hear a different voice, but this is Lucy's story as I have heard her tell it.

[Lis Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fictionalized biography of a quite remarkable but little-known 19th-century figure, Lucy Ann Lobdell, a woman who lived most of her adult life as a man.

Born in 1829 in upstate New York, Lucy learned from her father to hunt and to play the violin, both unusual activities for a female at that time. She did marry, but after the marriage failed, and she had a young daughter to support, her life started to veer off in unexpected directions. Leaving her daughter with her parents, Lucy left home dressed as a man, taking the name Joseph Israel Lobdell, setting out to make enough money that she could send for her daughter and make a life for them together.

She never lived with her daughter again.

As Joseph Lobdell, she started a school of music and dance in a Pennsylvania town. While quite successful for a time, she was eventually discovered, and had to flee on very short notice.

But by this time she'd discovered she liked being a man.

There's much that's hard to understand about Lucy/Joseph's identity and life, because the nineteenth century didn't have the concepts and vocabulary to adequately describe or discuss people who did not fit easily into existing gender roles. It seems quite likely that she, or he, was a transgender man, at a time when there was no possibility of society understanding and accepting her/him as that. While Lucy/Joseph's life is in some senses very well documented, it gives us very little understanding of the inner person, and no really coherent story.

This novel is an excellent effort at supplying that coherent story, and a possible understanding of who Lucy/Joseph was to him/herself. Her further adventures, in the Minnesota Territory and the early years of the state of Minnesota, then in New York again where she meets Marie Perry, and their subsequent life together is by turns fascinating and painful.

In a day when marriage equality and gender equity have made enormous progress, and the rights of transgender individuals have some protection even though not being fully accepted yet, this is an enlightening look at what life was like in earlier times for those who did not and could not fit the approved mold.

Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, I don’t know how to begin to explain how much I enjoyed reading this book. It is a fictionalized history of a person who actually lived. Lucy Ann Lobdell was born in the early 1800′s and her story is amazing. Klaber does a great job of mixing fact with how Lucy would have acted.

Lucy was married and had a daughter, Helen. Her husband became abusive so she moved in with her family and he went his own way. Lucy, though, was not a typical woman. She was the type to go hunting and spend a large number of her hours in the woods, wearing men’s clothing. After a while she decided life with her family was not how she wanted to live. She wanted to be able to provide for her daughter, who was still rather young at this point. So she left, as Joseph Lobdell. She cut her hair and started wearing men’s clothing full time. When she found her first employment, no one ever realized she was anyone other than Joseph, a man. Although, she did get in to trouble a few times when people found out who she really was.

The story Klaber weaves is taken from letters, newspapers, and other historical documents. Having been an History Major is college, I find some historical fiction to take too many liberties with their characters and historical events. It is one of the reasons I don’t read Historical Fiction very much anymore, because I know what really happened and find myself disappointed or mad at the author. From what I can tell Klaber did his research. Be advised that there is no way to tell what a person was thinking, but given enough reading about their life and letters they have written, you can come extremely close.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

From The Book Wheel

What a cool book! I know that’s an odd description for a novel, especially one that falls into the historical fiction category, but I just can’t think of a better word. This book is just soooo cool. And incredible. And wonderfully written. And you know what’s even cooler than the book? The story about how it came to be! (see video below)

The Background

The author, William Klaber, fell into the remarkable story of Lucy Ann Lobdell quite accidentally. In the early 1980′s,  he and his wife bought a house in Basket Creek, NY. Twenty years later, a researcher named Jack Niflot (who was intending to write a book about Lucy ) called up Klaber and wanted to meet for lunch. He then told Klaber that not only was his house rumored to be haunted by the ghost of Lucy Ann Lobdell (who Klaber was clueless about), but he handed over all of his research on her to Klaber. You see, Niflot was going to write a book about Lucy but was no longer feeling up to it. Klaber, he believed, was the right man for the task. And thus, a story was born! Can you believe it? Luckily for the rest of the world, the research was handed over to someone capable of weaving such a great tale.

The Book

The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell follows the real-life Lucy (Joseph) Lobdell as she makes her way through the world living as a man. Left pregnant and penniless by her husband, Lucy was forced to move back in with her parents and siblings. Frustrated at being unable to provide for her daughter, Helen, Lucy snuck out of her family home in search of “mens work” that would allow her to build a better life for her and her daughter. Lucy had every intention of working for a short period of time, purchasing some land, and bringing her daughter to live with her. What she found, instead, was a life full of opportunities and risks.

For the full review, go to The Book Wheel.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book without reading any reviews. The cover and title looked interesting, so I started to read it on my Kindle. One of the first things you see on an e-reader is a page that says "this is a work of fiction...." In other words, a novel. But before long I started noticing footnotes. Who puts footnotes in a novel? And those little news clippings at the beginning of each chapter looked authentic. I was confused - it was reading like a well documented memoir.

Whatever it was, it held my attention and I kept on reading. When I read the long "author's afterword" at the end of the "memoir" I finally understood Lucy Ann Lobdell's story was neither fish nor fowl. The book is not exactly a novel and not exactly history, but rather a hybrid of the two.

The basic story itself is not a new one. We've all read about women who cut their hair and lived as a man. I've read several accounts from the same time period, including a few about women who fought in the Civil War. Often these women are depicted as adventurous or excessively patriotic. Lucy Lobdell certainly had adventures, but her masquerade began and continued as an act of desperation. She simply could find no way to make a life for herself as a woman.

Lucy's story is a vivid reminder of how far women in the western world have come since her time

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

Joseph Lobdell was a trans man. Not a brave woman who refused to conform to the restrictive gender conventions of her era, as William Klaber portrays him. Klaber's justification is that we can't apply modern labels to historical figures, as though trans people didn't exist until we had a word for them. According to Lobdell's descendant and biographer Bambi L. Lobdell:

Many newspaper and history writers focus on Lobdell’s obvious resistance to dominant gender roles and expressions, and mention repeatedly that Lobdell insisted on wearing men’s clothes and being called Joe, even when it brought him trouble. After leaving the family home, three times Joe was outed in communities where he had established himself as a respectable man, once chased out of town by a tar-and-feather crew, and twice jailed and tried for the crime of impersonating a man, and he still continued to live as a man, well knowing what the risks could be for doing so. Once he moved back close to the family home, because of his fame as the Female Hunter, his identity was not kept secret for long. Even when the general public discovered this person was Lucy Ann Lobdell, Joe continued to wear men’s clothes, do work that is traditionally reserved for men, go by the name of Joe, and refer to he and Marie as husband and wife, even though doing so brought a great deal of ridicule, legal harassment and arrest, and social abuse.

Despite Joe’s peerless abilities with guns, the only time Joe ever acted violently was when law officials forced him into women’s clothes. On one particular occasion when this happened, he ripped up those clothes and screamed until the sheriff brought him men’s clothes, at which point he became very calm and cooperative. Even after being incarcerated in Willard Insane Asylum, Lobdell "dressed in male attire throughout and declared herself to be a man, giving her name as Joseph Lobdell, a Methodist minister; said she was married and had a wife living," according to Dr. Wise. Dr. Wise states that his patient is lucid, clear, coherent, not confused, not erratic, and able to relate vivid recollections of his life. In other words, Joe is not acting deluded or disconnected from reality. And in this frame of mind, Joe tells the doctor, the man who could release him, that he "considered herself a man in all that the name implies."

The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell is a fictionalized account of Lobdell's life written in the first person; I think the central problem here is that such an undertaking requires a deeper understanding of gender identity and gender politics than a conventional cis man like Klaber is able to grasp. Not that a cis person couldn't ever write a good story about a trans protagonist, but it would require a lot of research and consulting with the trans community. Even his interpretation of Lobdell as a butch lesbian fails to interrogate gender any more profoundly than "oppressing women and making them marry men they don't like and wear dresses is bad."

So yeah, one star for both trans erasure and putting Joseph's deadname in the title. Also, it's just not well-written.

Content warning for rape (both attempted and discussed).

[Sonja Arlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine a society where women had no rights, no real prospects besides being a maid servant or a wife, who were not even allowed to wear pants! After being abandoned by her husband, Lucy left her 3 year old daughter in the care of her family and set out to find a better life. It became clear early on in the novel that Lucy was struggling with her own sexuality and sense of self and for most part that struggle left even me confused on her behalf.

Initially I didn’t like Lucy or this novel, but she grows on you. It’s hard not to be affected by the ridicule and rejection she faced in town after town because of the way she chose to live her life. This was an interesting take on a part of American history I know very little about and I loved the fact that this novel was based on the real Lucy Lobdell (I had to Google this before I believed it :-))


**** Spoiler Alert****



Towards the middle of the book when Lucy bought a piece of land in Minnesota to raise horses it reminded me a lot of the book, Half Broke Horses, and how hard work and perseverance was essential to survive life at the Frontier.

A poorly planned swim in the river however left Lucy “exposed” to her neighbour as being in fact a woman and not the man, Joseph, everyone in town thought she was. After raping her he set out to tell everyone about her deceit and in a ridiculous twist of events the courts tried to convict her for wearing pants and impersonating a man!

All charges were eventually dropped and Lucy left Minnesota in search of her estranged daughter ending up staying in an Almhouse where she met Marie Perry who later became her wife. Yep, that’s right her wife. They were married by an unsuspecting Judge who took Lucy/Joseph as the man he/she pretended to be. I am sure this must have been the first same-sex marriage ever recorded.

Finally after many more mishaps and hardship Lucy/Joseph was admitted to an insane asylum where she spent the rest of her days until she died at the age of 83.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

The opening of this book pulled me in with the promise of a fun adventure story, featuring a woman disguised as a man in 19th century America. But this novel is based on the life of a real woman, and by the last third it turns into a tragedy.

In 1855, after a failed marriage and leaving her young daughter to be raised by her family, Lucy Ann Lobdell set out in disguise to earn her living. As Joseph, a teacher of music and dance, she won the heart of a young woman; later, she became a frontier guard in Minnesota and even purchased her own claim. But her attempts to live life in her own way were foiled by a society that viewed her choices as criminal, or as a sign of mental illness.

This is an engaging story, with a well-paced narrative that captures Lucy/Joseph’s adventures in a first-person voice that feels fitting to the period, while including plenty of dialogue for quick reading. The writing style is clean and precise, without excess verbiage, and the tale holds the reader’s attention throughout. It is one of those stories that would seem too wild to believe if it weren't true, and I am glad this author brought it to light. Although a man (married to a woman, with kids), the author succeeds at writing about a woman whose sexuality and gender identity are fluid; there’s none of that obsessed-with-her-own-boobs, only-has-important-relationships-with-men garbage that often gives away a man’s attempt to write from a female point-of-view. And the author has done his research into the time period, creating a setting that feels authentic and is interesting to read about.

That said, I didn’t love this book. The jaunty tone with which it begins jars with the tragedy it becomes; I was prepared for hijinks and thus disappointed when it turned serious. And I never quite connected with the protagonist, whether because the book moves rather quickly through many situations with barely a pause for breath, or because the character isn’t fully-developed, or because the use of the first person to create intimacy with the reader almost always backfires for me (do you have any idea how many books I’ve read about “I”?).

All that said, this is a good book and worth reading. Read shortly after The Gods of Tango, which has a very similar premise; that book is more romantic and has a more luxurious writing style and happier ending, but this one is more immediate and engaging. If you’re going to read one historical novel about a woman dressing as a man, playing the violin and getting involved with women, this is your book.

[Eva · Rating 1 out of 5]

TW: rape

This book sells itself as the memoir of a queer person who existed before such vocabulary had been invented. In the hands of a writer from the queer community, it may have been a delightful memoir. But even the title of this book shows that the writer refuses to respect the queerness of his subject matter. Joseph Lobdell (1829-1912) spent the last 30 years of his life in an insane asylum because he refused to stop calling himself a man, wearing men's clothes, or referring to himself as Joseph. That this book is titled with his dead name is a spit on his grave.

This is the fictionalized memoir of a real person that isn't well known. That makes reviewing the content difficult. I can not be sure what was made up or embellished, and what truly happened. I do know that prior to finding out Joseph was a real person, I thought this was some straight man's historical lesbian erotica that he somehow got published.

Since finding out Joseph actually existed, I have read as many articles about him as I could find trying to figure out what I could fault the author for and what was truly Joseph's life. None of those articles mention rape, actual insanity or frighteningly large age gaps between Joseph and his love interests; but this book certainly does. Those articles also agree on some very interesting points (He had a pet bear!) that I am baffled were not included in this book.

What I can say for certainty is that this book does not respect the very person it is about. Joseph is misgendered throughout, frequently dead named, and made to act schizophrenic to justify committing him. Even putting these injustices aside the book is not well written. The author has managed to take an incredibly interesting life and somehow make it dull and boring. Everything about this memoir is a travesty.

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some characters that are so wild, so wholly original, so fascinating and so ahead of their time and place that they could only be real and could only be captured in fiction. Lucy Ann Lobdell was one such character. Casting off the limitations imposed by her gender in 1800s, the time where women were barely more than property, she chose to live her life and find her freedoms as a man. This was, of course, to mixed results, and, had society been kinder and more accepting, then, quite, possibly, she wouldn't have so many mental problems that later became her whole life, but she (or he, by choice, pronouns are confusing for this review, since the book refers to her by her given name) had a long and interesting life, found love, adventure, notoriety even, and certainly through it all, marched steadily to the beat of her/his own drum. To thy own self and all that, as Polonius advised. Lobdell was a genuine american pioneer literally and figuratively. Exceptionally ejoyable, entertaining book about a terrific historical figure, Klaber does very well with this fictional autobiography, Lobdell's narrative is strong and realistic and he maintains factual authenticity. Great story. Highly recommended.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The author treated his subject, Lucy/Joseph with true respect. He truly seemed to be in sync with the real Lucy/Joseph. I got a little lost timeline-wise, but that was cleared up in the author's note at the end. Joseph's wife, Marie, was a strong character herself, which wasn't apparent at first. What a woman she was! It's a travesty that Lucy/Joseph, and others like her were treated as criminals and/or insane. What surprised me was the number of people who knew her 'secret' but saw past it to the person she was and treated her well.

[Laurie Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucy Ann was on the run. Her abusive husband had left her, she had no way to support her toddler daughter, and she was living once again with her disapproving family. Her options were slim. So Lucy Ann Slater, always more comfortable outside than in, a better shot than a seamstress, became Joseph Lobdell--and wearing short hair and her brother's clothes, her mannerisms studied, she passed. Initially, I thought Lucy's story would be closer to Viola's in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. In the end, Lucy's story as Joe set me thinking about gender and culture, what's learned and what's innate.

On his travels, Joe lives in one small town after another. He teaches dance and violin at his first stop; squats in the wilds of Minnesota to hold a landowner's property through winter; settles to raise horses; works odd jobs on a poor farm; even preaches for a time. At every stop Joe makes friends who know nothing of his secret. He falls in love for the first time. And author William Klaber would have us understand that it was his falling in love with (and engagment to) the wild and passionate Lydia Watson that brought Joe to see himself as more man than woman. Joe's struggles were real--he had no gauge by which to measure what he felt and my heart ached for him.

But at each of those stops Joe was eventually discovered and threatened with violence, arrested, chased out of town, assaulted. Most of society had only one measure for his cross-dressing: it was an "offense against moral decency ... contrary to the laws of God, man and nature." And so Joe never knew peace for any length of time.

At times, author William Klaber lost hold of Joe's narrative, choosing, I think, to cover more territory than was necessary to tell his story. Historically, there are many gaps to Lucy's story; Klaber attempted to fill them when perhaps he should not have.

I was surprised in reading the author's acknowledgements, that Lucy Lobdell was real, known as the female hunter of Delaware County. A distant relative of Lucy's, Dr. Bambi Lobdell, maintains in another book about her life, A Strange Sort of Being, that Lucy was transgender. (It's now on my wishlist.) But after reading a post on The Advocate.com (http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertai...), it's clear that despite coming a long way in our thinking about gender identity, we're still stuck, as this discussion on GenderTrender (http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/20...) indicates. Such disagreement is frustrating, to say the least. The author's credentials are sound, but after reading those other discussions, I worried that everyone weighing in on Lucy/Joe might have an agenda! I was also puzzled that Klaber mentioned Bambi Lobdell only in passing in his afterward; her academic work seems as though it was given short shrift in the acknowledgments. [See comment below for a reply by the author; in it he indicates that he disagrees with Lobdell's conclusions, but respects her research.]

"Oh what a tangled web we weave" for ourselves and others who would simply love.

[Dixie LoCicero · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was on Barnes and Noble for my Nook, very inexpensive, sounded interesting. I am so glad I found this book! It actually is based on a real person, Lucy Ann Lobdell, in the late 1800s, who as a young girl dressed in "male" clothing, learned to hunt, etc. At that time, females had very limited opportunities, whether it was for schooling or jobs. Lucy got married, had a daughter, then her husband abandoned them. She lived with her parents & siblings, but her mother never approved of her. Lucy dreamt of being able to support herself and her daughter, so she left to find a job as a man. She eventually fell in love with another woman, who didn't know her true identity. In time, she was found out by others in town, and had to flee. She ended up in the new territory of Minnesota, hoping to buy land & raise horses as she and her lover had dreamed of. Even though she proved herself as a hard worker, able to endure the hardships of the cold unsettled northern territory, once again she was discovered to be female. She was assaulted by another man and ended up losing the land she had paid for and settled. She later travels back east, living in a shelter where her daughter had lived earlier. She meets another woman, falls in love, and they try to live quietly together. However, people are unable to accept that she identifies as "male", they do not accept the two women's relationship & believe they are crazy and insane. She ended up spending her life in solitude, locked up in an asylum.

I found this book very interesting, as I've read a lot about women in early history who either dressed as male to be able to survive, get an education, qualify for jobs, etc. Also women who truly identified as male and were unhappy unless they could live as a male. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in sexual identity or just a good read!

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Klaber has given us a rare gift. In his new historical novel The Rebellion of Lucy Ann Lobdell, he brings to life the remarkable story of a notorious but almost forgotten 19th century trailblazer from New York State. This is an extraordinary story of courage, determination, love and misfortune. Lucy had the audacity to cross lines forbidden to women and live as a man with the liberties of a man. Taking such risks cost her dearly, but she dared to live her life according to her truth.

Klaber deftly gives voice to a woman ahead of her time who took for herself the rights denied her as a woman; to pursue a fair living wage, to love and marry whomever she pleased, to own property and to dress in the attire of her choosing.

So little written history exists about the lives of women both great and small. This fictional memoir of Lucy Ann Lobdell returns to us the vibrant legend of an intrepid heroine and an original feminist. This well honed adventure is a “must read” for everyone.

[wade · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novelized version of the real life of a fascinating and fearless woman of the mid 1800's. She has a child to a man she does not care for early in life and even though she loves the little girl she leaves her with her family and moves West taking on the identity of a man. The story revolves around her relationships with both men and women until she eventually goes home toward the novel's end. This lady is way ahead of her time in terms of open gender relationships. Could be easily be adapted into a movie.

[Lauri Rottmayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down.

I'm not usually a fan of historical fiction but this story, based on a real woman, captivated me. She left her home to make a life for her daughter and herself by posing as a man. I liked her spunky attitude earlier in her life and it was sad to see how society (and her family!) treated her as she continued trying to be the person that she was.

[Heather Domin · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be reviewed in the May edition of Historical Novels Review. Excellent book, highly recommended!

[Leah Mosher · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1855, Lucy Ann Lobdell cut her hair, donned her brother’s clothing, and ran away from her home in southern New York to live the rest of her life as a man. Her travels took her down the Erie Canal to Pennsylvania, to the western frontier in Minnesota, and back east again, where she found love with a fellow runaway named Marie. During her lifetime, Lucy, who went by Joseph, professed a desire to write a memoir of her life; now, more than 150 years later, William Klaber has taken on the task she wasn’t able to complete. The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell is the fictionalized memoir of her life, which paints an empathetic, richly imagined portrait of an extraordinary woman.

I really loved this book, and here are five reasons why:

1. I loved that this novel takes the known facts of a woman’s life and fills in the gaps to create a fully-realized person. The tale of a woman living her life as a man in the 19th century is a fascinating concept in itself, but knowing that Lucy was a real person adds a real gravitas to her story. I couldn’t put this book down, but the Afterword just about broke my heart.

2. There’s a beautiful love story. I’m not usually one for romance, but watching Lucy fall in love, first with a dance student named Lydia, and then with Marie at the almshouse where she and Lucy washed up years later, was really lovely and tender.

3. The story follows Lucy across the country. Klaber takes the reader down the Erie Canal (complete with bawdy canal songs) and to pre-statehood Minnesota, where she spends a winter guarding a property and then stakes her own claim. It is fascinating to see America at this point in its history, when pioneers were filled with the hope of future riches and fear of their Indian neighbors.

4. The novel offers a fascinating perspective on sexuality at a time when there was no language to describe women who dressed as men and loved other women. We see Lucy struggle with a sexuality that is deemed unnatural and fight to defend herself against those who see her attire as maliciously deceptive. It’s impossible not to ache for her.

5. Rebellious women! If you’ve hung around here for a while, you know ladies breaking the rules is kind of my jam. Lucy isn’t the only woman in this novel who defies the standards set for her, and it is so refreshing to see women rebelling against the social attitudes of the time.

The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell is a fantastic, vivid portrait of a woman who chose to embrace her true self, regardless of the hardships it brought upon her, rather than suffocate under the restrictions placed on women in the 1800s. She has become one of my favorite characters in literature (and history!), and I won’t be forgetting about her any time soon.

See the original review on Books Speak Volumes.

[Elizabeth☮ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucy Ann Lobdell chose to live her life as Joseph Lobdell from a very early age. Lucy marries, against her parents' wishes, a man that is selfish and cruel. A drunk, once Lucy gives birth to their daughter, Helen, her husband abandons her without a word. Lucy finds herself shamed by her husband and unable to swallow her pride to return home. She leaves her daughter in her family's care and goes into the world on her own.

When she begins to travel, she makes the decision to live her life as a man. She knows this will make her way easier as a woman alone is a woman that has fallen. Joseph finds himself going from town to town attempting to make a life for himself and his daughter, but once he is discovered to be a woman, life becomes a constant challenge. Joseph does find love and even marries a wonderful woman, Marie, but ultimately, Joseph suffers from an undiagnosed psychological issue that causes Joseph to forget and go into rages.

Joseph suffered both mentally and spiritually (and sometimes physically) for the choices he made. He lived his life on his terms and serves as a bold example of staying true to who you are no matter the consequences.

The story is written in the first person from Joseph's perspective and is an easy and interesting voice to follow. The book was well-researched and Klaber gives good notes at the end to fill in how he came to discover Joseph's story.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

We put the question of whether or not a man can write a convincing female character to rest with Flaubert and Tolstoy. Here we have William Klaber writing a convincing character who is a lesbian, and in so doing allowing her to deal with all the personal and societal questions that 1850 small town and wilderness life (in this case Pennsylvania and Minnesota) can throw her way. Bravo!

Klaber was led to his story by coming into possession of a satchel full of journal entries and news clippings about the real-life Lucy Lobdell.

In this fictional but true to life accounting, Lucy Lobdell is a young woman in a pre-Civil War man's world who decides to go against all convention by leaving her family home, and daughter, and dressing and living disguised as a man, but always well aware of her gender. In the course of the story, she suffers sexual assault, as well as acute depression, is in and out of court and jail, makes her way as an itinerant musician, dance teacher, homesteader, and wilderness trapper, and even marries.

This book is sad and beautiful, and the author has the courage to tamp down both drama and violence to give us characters and situations that feel true to reality. The power of this book is in its humanity. I hope it's around for a good long time.

[Kathy Clevenger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I normally don't provide any comments to support my ratings, but I after finishing this book, I'm almost compelled to. Did I love this book? No. Would I recommend it? Perhaps. But what is even more important than either of those is the fact that the person of Lucy Ann Loddell has continued to interest me even after I have finished the story and placed the book up on the shelf. I've sought out more information about her on the internet, and found myself wondering how she found the strength and courage to go on against so much adversity. How far has society come in accepting those who choose, or are forced into non-traditional lifestyles? Or are we still stuck in the past? If getting the reader to engage themselves that much in his character was Mr. Klaber's intention, then he has definitely succeeded.

[Brenda Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was unlike any other historical fiction book I have ever read. This book is set in a time where women’s rights did not exist, and being an outspoken woman myself, this was hard to read in many parts. I kept thinking about what life would have been like for Lucy / Joseph if she / he would have lived today instead of the late 1800s. The resounding message of this book is “love is love”.

[Ceillie Simkiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given as an ARC via netgalley.

Thoroughly enjoyable telling of the life of Lucy Ann Lobdell, though I think he would have preferred to be called Joseph.

[Heather Hawkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such an interesting character, but the story was often forced and clumsy.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The true person behind this is interesting, this book not so much. I think I'd rather read the old newspaper clippings, which I bet are more entertaining. Feels like a wasted opportunity.