Girls, Visions and Everything

by Sarah Schulman, Vanina Géré (Translator)

This reissued novel takes readers on a "wry and playful" (Out!) tour of lesbian sex, politics, and art in New York City. The city's sizzling -- especially at the Kitsch-Inn, where the girls are mounting an all-female production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Lesbian, Novels, New York, Contemporary

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Sarah Schulman is a longtime AIDS and queer activist, and a cofounder of the MIX Festival and the ACT UP Oral History Project. She is a playwright and the author of seventeen books, including the novels The Mere Future, Shimmer, Rat Bohemia, After Delores, and People in Trouble, as well as nonfiction works such as The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life during the Reagan/Bush Years, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, and Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. She is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at The City University of New York, College of Staten Island.

Reviews

[anna marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

hot queer shit !!!!

[Floflyy]

Je n'ai quasiment rien à reprocher à ce texte. Edité en 86 (il y a 40 ans), il est encore d'une actualité folle : tant dans la langue (même si je suppose que le travail de traduction y est pour beaucoup) que dans les sujets abordés et leur traitement. Soit l'autrice était hyper avant gardiste soit malheureusement nous assistons à un retour en arrière sur les questions LGBT. Je pense qu'il y a un peu des deux, notamment concernant le militantisme LGBT+ qui a tendance à s'affadir ou la gentrification de certains quartiers/villes.

En tant que grand fan de Patti Smith, j'ai retrouvé un peu de son histoire. Une meuf qui vogue dans un New York underground (qui le devient de moins en moins), ses histoires d'amour, SON histoire d'amour, les familles qu'on se choisit, l'art... tout y est <3

[Sian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some thoughts...

I enjoyed this a lot. It's more of a series of encounters and experiences rather than a plot-driven story, which I'm fine with, but it means that it's a bit more of a challenging read. The main character talks a lot about(and reads) 'On the Road' and there is a similarity of style between the beat classic and 'Girls, Visions and Everything', except, notably there's no road, there's just New York City in the early 80s and gentrification and a slice of real life and times. Schulman writes in the introduction that she wrote it in response to Jack Kerouac:

'I was insisting on the experience of community in the trajectory of popular American heroism and therefore asserting that fiction with primary lesbian content should be recognized as an integral part of American literature. If I could stretch to universalize to Jack Kerouac, then the dominant-culture reader must be able to reciprocate by universalizing me. This last goal has not yet been realized.'

which is great and also really interesting...

So. I guess it's a sort of lesbian Kerouac (actually, thinking about it it's reminiscent of Jan Kerouac's style in Baby Driver: A Story About Myself which I'm a huge fan of and was written in the early 80s too) and a precursor to some of the writers I love, like Michelle Tea and Eileen Myles.


couple of quotes I liked -

'I'm not falling in love until 1990. I refuse to be romantic during the Reagan era.'

and

'They tried out a few creative slogans, since slogan writing is second nature to urban lesbians.
"Cruise People, Not Missiles"
"More Dykes, No Nukes."'

and
'Do you think gay people will ever be safe? Emily asked.'

[Morgan M. Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

"[...] Since gay people as a group change very quickly and things become dated, then nostalgic, then historic, in a matter of months. As Helen Hayes had put it, 'Today's kitsch is tomorrow's collectible.'"

Sarah Schulman's early novel Girls, Visions, and Everything is in retrospect a nostalgic and historic romp through the early gentrification of the East Village, seen through the eyes of a small group of lesbian writers and artists at The Kitsch-Inn. Schulman makes you long for a New York that no longer exists, even as she underscores the precarity with which the marginalized denizens of the then already-disappearing era lived. In conversation with her novels that followed - After Delores, People in Trouble, Empathy, Rat Bohemia - Schulman has written an essential history of the creeping destruction wrought by gentrification through the 1980s and 1990s leading to the current playground for rich kids that Manhattan has become.

[Fabrice del Dongo · Rating 4 out of 5]

lesbiennes sous canicule ; on point

(lisez-le, c'est tendre et mélancolique, j'en ai loupé 2 changements de métro)

(que dieu m'accorde une girly avant la fin de l'année svp ça devient nécessaire pour ma santé et celle de mon entourage)

[Bien]

woooooow oké ik moet even men gedachten kwijt

- Sarah Schulman's schrijfstijl doet mijn hoofd echt goed! soort van fragmentarisch maar toch brengt ze het allemaal weer samen op een manier. en zo heerlijk eerlijk!! erotiek in haar naakte schoonheid joepie! (eigenlijk wist ik dit al maar in de 2 jaar sinds mijn laatste encounter met Schulman was ik het alweer vergeten)

- I'm a sucker voor queer New-York en mijn liefde voor dit boek bevestigt en hernieuwd dat weer hihi

- De manier waarop lesbian constellations en community tot leven komen, maakt me warm en in some ways voelt het alsof ik er bij hoor ofzo? Want ookal vindt dit verhaal plaats in de jaren 80 in een totaal andere situatie, toch voelen veel van de emoties heel dichtbij. Zo de liefde voor je community maar ook de dagelijkse realiteit ervan. Ook: heel dit boek is lesbians die een beetje de straten en de art-spaces in de stad ronddwalen en elkaar tegenkomen en een beetje chillen en affaires hebben enzo en dat is gewoon alles wat ik wil

- maar deze ronddwalingen zijn verweven met de harde realiteit van een veranderende, gentrificerende stad en dat maakt dit boek veel meer dan een luchtig schrijfseltje.

- They watched [A Streetcar Named Desire] and both agreed that the message was too sad. It said that life is a trap and anyone who tries to create their own magic will be destroyed. [...] Even when life is sad, people still have a good time. That's what these women and all their friends were trying to say everyday, in their different ways."

- als ik sterren moet geven misschien 4,5 ofzo maar ja wat zijn sterren

[poutre · Rating 3 out of 5]

j’ai eu l’impression de mettre beaucoup plus de temps à lire ce livre que les dates que je vois là mais ça me frustre !! c’était un super livre hyper intéressant mais je reste un peu sur ma faim.
J’adore le fond de gentrification du quartier et le questionnement sur comment ça arrive qu’est ce que ça veut dire pour les habitant•es pour la vie de quartier mais aussi pour la communauté queer de façon plus large, qu’est ce qui disparaît en premier qu’est ce qui est symptomatique du changement etc.

Sur le reste je suis moins convaincue parce que si j’adore l’histoire Lila/Emily je trouve qu’on les connaît ps assez, qu’elles restent très floues et si c’est parfois bien j’aurai préféré en connaître plus !!!

Après ça reste des lesbiennes dans une grande ville sous contexte « je déteste mon travail et c’est la canicule » donc super à lire en ce moment i can relate

[Lune · Rating 3 out of 5]

j'ai aimé mais je n'ai fait que penser à mes futures lectures pendant que je le lisais

[Imogen · Rating 4 out of 5]

really crumbs away from 5 stars. this book makes me want to live in nyc. and be a lesbian? cool read.

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird, wonderful, funny, sad. Full of LOVE for community and place.

[Maddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favorite. It’s hard to find novel that nails the romance and the realism. Maybe what it is: the sharp wit and delicately conveyed beauty sparkle brighter in a doomed world. LOVED!!!

[Zain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenges the perception that existing and thriving are mutually exclusive.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her city was the most beautiful woman she had ever known!!!! And she kept changing!!!!!!!!!

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

J’ai aimé découvrir le East Village des années 80 et sa communauté de lesbiennes d’alors. J’ai beaucoup ri à certains passages et eu beaucoup d’empathie pour le côté difficile des vies des femmes lesbiennes d’alors et pour les populations gentrifiées.
Mis de côté les évolutions technologiques, le récit a plutôt bien vieilli.

[Madeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

sexy smart interesting strange… i look at lila’s dilettantism and crushes and see a refraction of my own life in new york over the past decade, even as the neighborhood it documents has been so decimated

[Willow · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite sarah schulman yet, and will probably become one of my favorite novels ever. a very life affirming novel, for us girls without a context.

[Nairne Holtz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Girls, Visions, and Everything, we meet protagonist Lila Futuransky, an aspiring writer and Jack Kerouac fan, who ponders, as the novel itself does, what freedom and being an outlaw mean. Does the outlaw sensibility and freedom from conventional life espoused by the Beats translate to a group of art dykes living in New York’s gentrifying East Village in the 1980s? The answer, of course, is both yes and no. Mostly no, because these women are more about community obligation, and their freedom is constrained by discrimination and harassment. Lila’s world is not the open road—it’s ten city blocks in a New York not as siloed as it is today by disparities in wealth. It’s a place where “the men in [Lila’s] life” are three homeless guys on her street with whom she has daily interactions. It is a mixed social world where lesbians are intersectional in their politics and polyamorous. It’s an art world devoid of ambition where poor lesbians work crappy day jobs and make art for themselves and each other—a campy version of A Streetcar Named Desire; a festival of deliberately bad performance art; and a short story about being rejected, which Lila shoves under the door of the woman who rejected her. Their art, unlike those of the Beats, couldn’t be commodified, but the women don’t care so much—they are preoccupied by rising rents and love affairs. Big-hearted Lila is falling in love with a high-strung costume designer and soon may have to choose between the freedom to love many, and the responsibility of cherishing one. This is a charming tender-queer novel that nicely captures the near-past.

[Theo Dora · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Isabel, when God tells you that you can have anything you want, what are you going to ask for?”
“I don’t know.” Isabel answered, scratching her head. “I wouldn’t want to get any of the things that I want too suddenly, because then the fun and the search and the dreams would all be over. It’s not the satisfaction I’m after. I like thinking about new ways of doing things and then making up shows about the trying. Do you think God could give me something like that?”
“You’ve already got that.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, how about health insurance?”

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm unsure about this. I certainly enjoyed reading it quite a lot, but I can't tell whether I think it's well-written. Also: what was that ending? I wish we had some more explanation. But overall, enjoyable to read and detailing a very important part of LGTBQ (mostly lesbian) life in New York in the 80s.

[kot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Schulman writes a love story? I started to get nervous about it. Thank God for the last couple of chapters--you restored my faith in the cynical, snarky, overwhelming and gut-wrenching Schulman.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and, as other reviewers have mentioned, there are a lot of great quotes. I also appreciated the insights provided in this book. There are beautiful, funny, and dark moments, all wrapped up into one. Sarah Schulman’s preface at the beginning is excellent.

[Léa Brun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une immersion totale dans le New York lesbien des années 80. J’ai un peu décroché dans les moments historiques, il y a énormément de références (heureusement expliquées dans le glossaire qui un peu mal fait je trouve mais il a le mérite d’être là) à assimiler. C’est vraiment la relation entre Lila et Emily ainsi que Lila avec ses amantes ou amies qui m’ont le plus touché. Ce texte me fait vraiment pensé à une pièce de théâtre, un peu dans la même veine que « Dans ton cul » de Valérie Solanas (en mieux j’avoue car je n’avais pas trop aimé). Et les scène de sexe sont vraiment… sympa a lire ahah
« Parfois, Lila s'autorisait à jeter un regard empreint de splendeur sur tout un tas de choses ordinaires. »
« Elle était sur le point de se laisser aller à une obsession totale pour une femme qui finirait par s'essuyer les pieds sur elle, et pour-quoi? Pour ses beaux cheveux. Mais au nom du bon vieux temps, il fallait qu'elle s'enlise, une fois de plus, dans le bourbier des poursuites sans avenir. C'était une manière de se sentir vivante. »
« Il y a des moments qui ressortent avec tout le charme et la netteté d'une photo en noir et blanc. Les quarante premières fois qu'on le regarde, tout l'épisode s'anime. C'est notre vie qui est là, figée, avec cette personne-là qui sourit, dans la fleur de l'âge, tard le soir au coin d'une rue. Et cet instant devient l'expérience vécue tout entière, jusqu'à ce que bien plus tard, Longtemps après s'être séparées et perdues de vue, une seule chose demeure: cet instant. »
« De nouveau, tout semblait possible. »

[Ada See · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Each year's festivities had their own special character since gay people as a group change very quickly and things become dated, then nostalgic, then historic, in a matter of months.
As Helen Hayes has put it,
'Today's kitsch is tomorrow's collectible.'"

Given the above, it's hard not to encounter Sarah Schulman's 'Girls, Visions and Everything' as an historical artefact first: a 1986 dyke romp through a broke and gentrifying East Village that the author very much knew was disappearing as she wrote it. But beyond whatever plaque it might get in a museum, it's also a delicious, funny, sexy novel, thrumming with 'anxious to taste everything' energy, and earnestly devoted to the value of gay experience.

The main character, Lila Futuransky, is sophomorically obsessed with Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road', and her project is quite openly to mythologise her lesbian life the way the Beats did theirs – to mixed results. It turns out that maximal versions of that attitude aren't really compatible with loving people, and Lila (thank God) ultimately wants to love women more than she wants to be Jack Kerouac. Which is why it's a better book. 🥰

[Bingqian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could’ve been better written. The first half of the book is rather dry. Wandering on the street in New York is such a topic with potentials, even though the protagonist’s life is supposed to be banal. The second half contains some decent quotes. The ending where Emily and Lila walking down the street, hand in hand, actually made me sad.

[hani · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'aurais aimé l'aimer + que ça mais idk ça tournait un peu en rond et c'est sûrement the whole point (de juste montrer un personnage qui vagabonde dans une ville en transformation).

Après je salue tout de même le tableau que l'autrice fait de New York des 80's, entre misère sociale et nouvelles voix qui s’élèvent envers et contre tous. Ça fait un point pour la culture :)

[Hilo]

Das lustigste Dykebuch, das ich bisher gelesen habe

[jo]

I LOVE LESBIANS !!!!!!!!

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love gay people.

[Flavie · Rating 3 out of 5]

bravo les lesbiennes mais j’avoue le récit et le style ne m’ont pas attrapée

[Madisen Armstrong · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️s