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Sappho's Bar and Grill
Each month for a full year, the holiday parties and theme nights at Sappho's Bar & Grill spin lonely Hannah Stern into the past when she least expects it. Through her sexy encounters with foremothers ranging from Lilith to Sappho, through Radclyffe Hall to the All American Girls Baseball League, Hannah learns much about herself and women’s survival across time.
220 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 4, 2017
12 people are currently reading
278 people want to read
About the author
Bonnie J. Morris
19 books38 followersBonnie J. Morris grew up in Los Angeles and North Carolina. She earned a B.A. in Jewish history from American University, the first student there to minor in women’s studies. She completed her Ph.D. in women’s history at Binghamton University in New York in 1989.
Dr. Morris taught at both George Washington University and Georgetown for almost 25 years, becoming professor emeritus and Professor of the Year at GWU and Vicennial Medalist at Georgetown. In 2017 she joined the history faculty at the University of California-Berkeley, earning a nomination for its Excellence in Teaching Prize.
She is the author of 16 books, including three Lambda Literary Finalists, two national first-prize chapbooks, and the critical feminist texts Women’s History for Beginners, The Disappearing L, and The Feminist Revolution. She may be found lecturing on C-Span, Olivia Cruises, Semester at Sea, the National Women’s Music Festival, and on Pacifica Radio KPFK.
Dr. Morris taught at both George Washington University and Georgetown for almost 25 years, becoming professor emeritus and Professor of the Year at GWU and Vicennial Medalist at Georgetown. In 2017 she joined the history faculty at the University of California-Berkeley, earning a nomination for its Excellence in Teaching Prize.
She is the author of 16 books, including three Lambda Literary Finalists, two national first-prize chapbooks, and the critical feminist texts Women’s History for Beginners, The Disappearing L, and The Feminist Revolution. She may be found lecturing on C-Span, Olivia Cruises, Semester at Sea, the National Women’s Music Festival, and on Pacifica Radio KPFK.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 19, 2018
This won't be the book for everyone, but it was the perfect book for me at a specific time, in a specific mindset.
I haven't read a lot of truly wacky, magical-realism-type lesbian stories, and this one will be hard to top. I had to Google so many historical figures (and modern ones, too) just to get an idea of what is really important to Hannah, what needs to be revisited, what needs to be preserved. It's a damn good story that also forces you to learn a thing or two, which is always neat.
When I was in college, I wouldn't devoured this book, passed it onto my gender studies and creative writing classmates, then to my professors who were liberal and queer enough to teach us Sarah Waters and Rita Mae Brown alongside Woolf and Baldwin. It easily blurs the line between genre fiction (fun stuff for the lesbians) and quality literary fiction. Speaking of Brown, it really reminds me of Venus Envy, one of the coolest and weirdest lesbian books I've ever read.
This will feel too white, too Western, and too dated for a lot of readers. That's okay. I get that, and I agree with all of the above. It feels more at home in the days of Naiad Press, in the 80's and 90's when it wasn't "cool" to be liberal and gay and different than your academic peers. It's folksy and kitschy, and often, pretty corny. But it feels grounded in a very specific and insular subculture of women who have a lot of interesting stories to tell, and Hannah Stern's point of view had be invested from page one.
This is not only a gay story but a female-centric story--a sapphic sisterhood, if you will. Women find kinship and family in one another when they've been rejected by blood, and that warmth and emotion is often lacking in modern works, even though that familial separation definitely still happens all the time.
Like I said, it won't be for everyone. But it's a weird, wild, unique, sexy, cheesy, and totally, 100% original read. I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for something really different within the genre we all love.
I haven't read a lot of truly wacky, magical-realism-type lesbian stories, and this one will be hard to top. I had to Google so many historical figures (and modern ones, too) just to get an idea of what is really important to Hannah, what needs to be revisited, what needs to be preserved. It's a damn good story that also forces you to learn a thing or two, which is always neat.
When I was in college, I wouldn't devoured this book, passed it onto my gender studies and creative writing classmates, then to my professors who were liberal and queer enough to teach us Sarah Waters and Rita Mae Brown alongside Woolf and Baldwin. It easily blurs the line between genre fiction (fun stuff for the lesbians) and quality literary fiction. Speaking of Brown, it really reminds me of Venus Envy, one of the coolest and weirdest lesbian books I've ever read.
This will feel too white, too Western, and too dated for a lot of readers. That's okay. I get that, and I agree with all of the above. It feels more at home in the days of Naiad Press, in the 80's and 90's when it wasn't "cool" to be liberal and gay and different than your academic peers. It's folksy and kitschy, and often, pretty corny. But it feels grounded in a very specific and insular subculture of women who have a lot of interesting stories to tell, and Hannah Stern's point of view had be invested from page one.
This is not only a gay story but a female-centric story--a sapphic sisterhood, if you will. Women find kinship and family in one another when they've been rejected by blood, and that warmth and emotion is often lacking in modern works, even though that familial separation definitely still happens all the time.
Like I said, it won't be for everyone. But it's a weird, wild, unique, sexy, cheesy, and totally, 100% original read. I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for something really different within the genre we all love.
September 13, 2025
Going on an Olivia Cruise simply to touch Dr. Morris' hand and tell her that what these women are to her, she is to me, and that myself and my peers are the next link in the unbroken chain of lesbian intellectual legacy which will go on for as long as humans do
February 18, 2018
This book is a serious trip (pun intended). The writing itself is very lean, using the minimum number of words for maximum impact, hurtling the reader back and forth through time as Hannah goes on her travels. Part feminist treatise, part women’s history primer, Sappho’s Bar and Grill is unlike anything I’ve ever read before.
Full review: http://www.thelesbianreview.com/sapph...
Full review: http://www.thelesbianreview.com/sapph...
June 13, 2018
In this clever novel, women's history professor Hannah Stern frequents Sappho's Bar and Grill, a lesbian bar and restaurant owned by a friend. Would that every town had such a restaurant!
But Sappho's is more than a restaurant. It is a gateway through which Hannah encounters many of the women she has taught about, starting with Sappho herself. She also realizes that "ordinary" lesbians are part of history and meets them in the past as well as the present. She doesn't just meet them -- in several cases, she makes love with them. She meets Miriam, Radclyffe Hal, Harriet Tubman, and many others. She encounters poor English women sold as indentured servants in Massachusetts and Russian women soldiers who fought the Nazis. She can't bear to get any closer to the Nazi period.
I suppose she met the women she was most interested in. I noted that she didn't meet some of the women from the past whom I would choose to meet -- Susan B. Anthony, Virginia Woolf, and Simone de Beauvoir. The narrator thinks about past lovers, and meets one as a child, but I think she never had a lover die, because that would have been the woman she most wanted to see, for that would be mine.
This is an interesting journey through history for lesbians and feminists. The ending is all too believable.
But Sappho's is more than a restaurant. It is a gateway through which Hannah encounters many of the women she has taught about, starting with Sappho herself. She also realizes that "ordinary" lesbians are part of history and meets them in the past as well as the present. She doesn't just meet them -- in several cases, she makes love with them. She meets Miriam, Radclyffe Hal, Harriet Tubman, and many others. She encounters poor English women sold as indentured servants in Massachusetts and Russian women soldiers who fought the Nazis. She can't bear to get any closer to the Nazi period.
I suppose she met the women she was most interested in. I noted that she didn't meet some of the women from the past whom I would choose to meet -- Susan B. Anthony, Virginia Woolf, and Simone de Beauvoir. The narrator thinks about past lovers, and meets one as a child, but I think she never had a lover die, because that would have been the woman she most wanted to see, for that would be mine.
This is an interesting journey through history for lesbians and feminists. The ending is all too believable.
February 2, 2024
Rounding down because it was not for me.
There were lots of metaphors and I wanted to really enjoy it, but also sometimes set dressing was overlooked to make way for the metaphors and it made it hard to conceptualize. I had a hard time picturing how some people looked, when a carriage turned into another vehicle, etc.
There is supposed to be a romance, but it did not feel like it built with every story. Every once in a while there would be a nod towards the love interest but otherwise it was about the leads adventures in time/another reality.
I appreciated the part it plays as a record of lesbian history. It preserves that 90s older lesbian experience which was nice. And brought up issues like looking back at influential women in history and their contributions and their flaws (racist, eugenist, elitist, etc.)
If you like your reads mostly metaphorical I think you might like this. If you are looking for something a bit more literal you might have a bit of troubles. This was available through my library's Hoopla so worth checking out if you are on the fence.
There were lots of metaphors and I wanted to really enjoy it, but also sometimes set dressing was overlooked to make way for the metaphors and it made it hard to conceptualize. I had a hard time picturing how some people looked, when a carriage turned into another vehicle, etc.
There is supposed to be a romance, but it did not feel like it built with every story. Every once in a while there would be a nod towards the love interest but otherwise it was about the leads adventures in time/another reality.
I appreciated the part it plays as a record of lesbian history. It preserves that 90s older lesbian experience which was nice. And brought up issues like looking back at influential women in history and their contributions and their flaws (racist, eugenist, elitist, etc.)
If you like your reads mostly metaphorical I think you might like this. If you are looking for something a bit more literal you might have a bit of troubles. This was available through my library's Hoopla so worth checking out if you are on the fence.
December 1, 2025
Life’s too short for books I don’t like sorry to my book club
February 4, 2019
I don’t think I have the words to do this story justice...
I have always loved women’s history and this author did a fabulous job of bringing the past, these phenomenal foremothers and Isabel and Hannah to life for me. Studying the past lives of the women who came before me cannot compare to my late night reading of this captivating story that had me anchored to my bed until I got to the end. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series!
I have always loved women’s history and this author did a fabulous job of bringing the past, these phenomenal foremothers and Isabel and Hannah to life for me. Studying the past lives of the women who came before me cannot compare to my late night reading of this captivating story that had me anchored to my bed until I got to the end. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series!
March 10, 2020
I really, really, really enjoyed this book.
Part semi-autobiography, part self-indulgent fantasies mixed with a wonderfully fun exploration of super awesome women throughout history, this novel really takes the reader for a ride.
I was thrilled to come across this author and eventually found myself wishing I could take one of her women's history classes or even just hang out with her for an hour. Morris is part of a dying breed--one I'd like to count myself amongst--and the slow death is an excruciating one that will leave deep scars on everything it touches. The importance of women's studies cannot be overstated, but to center women in the new and much more widely accepted and flourishing gender and/or sexuality studies programs throughout the U.S. (and globally) is progressively considered heretical, bigoted, exclusionary. Detractors will even go so far as to say such focus on women and girls is antifeminist. The co-optation of feminist terminology by a movement that calls itself feminism while actively erasing women's history, women's spaces, and women's realities is an irony apparently totally lost on its adherents. Subtley, Morris calls this out while spending most of her energy underscoring and signal-boosting important women who came before us, from religious figures and abolitionists to lesbian authors and creators (one of whom is mentioned in the title).
I was happy to learn about some women I'd never heard of and elated to read what felt a bit like a well-educated fanfic of [swoon!]. That in particular was just delicious. So many scenes were incredibly charming and heartwarming. Some made my head spin, and not particularly in a pleasant way. Others were a bit over-the-top, but we don't often make ourselves sundaes that skimp on the toppings, do we?
Overall, this was a phenomenal romp that explored some sensitive political issues in a way that signaled camaraderie and sisterhood to those of us with an eye for it--an oasis in our current era, let me tell you--while also being delightfully educational. I'm glad I read this. Thank you for writing this, Professor!
Part semi-autobiography, part self-indulgent fantasies mixed with a wonderfully fun exploration of super awesome women throughout history, this novel really takes the reader for a ride.
I was thrilled to come across this author and eventually found myself wishing I could take one of her women's history classes or even just hang out with her for an hour. Morris is part of a dying breed--one I'd like to count myself amongst--and the slow death is an excruciating one that will leave deep scars on everything it touches. The importance of women's studies cannot be overstated, but to center women in the new and much more widely accepted and flourishing gender and/or sexuality studies programs throughout the U.S. (and globally) is progressively considered heretical, bigoted, exclusionary. Detractors will even go so far as to say such focus on women and girls is antifeminist. The co-optation of feminist terminology by a movement that calls itself feminism while actively erasing women's history, women's spaces, and women's realities is an irony apparently totally lost on its adherents. Subtley, Morris calls this out while spending most of her energy underscoring and signal-boosting important women who came before us, from religious figures and abolitionists to lesbian authors and creators (one of whom is mentioned in the title).
I was happy to learn about some women I'd never heard of and elated to read what felt a bit like a well-educated fanfic of [swoon!]. That in particular was just delicious. So many scenes were incredibly charming and heartwarming. Some made my head spin, and not particularly in a pleasant way. Others were a bit over-the-top, but we don't often make ourselves sundaes that skimp on the toppings, do we?
Overall, this was a phenomenal romp that explored some sensitive political issues in a way that signaled camaraderie and sisterhood to those of us with an eye for it--an oasis in our current era, let me tell you--while also being delightfully educational. I'm glad I read this. Thank you for writing this, Professor!
November 24, 2025
I wish every history lesson was through a time traveling lesbian
unfinished
March 5, 2020It's been two months and I still haven't finished this book, so I'm just adding it to my "unfinished" pile for now. And it's only 220 pages! I tried, but I was just so bored.
The main problem is that it's really not much of a story. It's just chapter after chapter of the author talking about feminism, and it doesn't matter whether I agree with her or not. I don't want to read a book that just goes on and on whacking me over the head with messages that I already know: Misogyny is bad! Anti-Semitism is bad! Racism is bad! Homophobia is bad! Crush the patriarchy! Yeehaw, women are great! I got it the first time. Really.
The rest is just bad fan fiction. The main character goes back in time and makes out and has sex with long-dead women from history, including the ghost of Radclyffe Hall. The scene includes the phrase "Hannah smelled...the secret hidden sweat of one of history's greatest butches, and Hannah felt the impossible waves of a ghost-given orgasm start to unfold." I don't even know what to say.
The main problem is that it's really not much of a story. It's just chapter after chapter of the author talking about feminism, and it doesn't matter whether I agree with her or not. I don't want to read a book that just goes on and on whacking me over the head with messages that I already know: Misogyny is bad! Anti-Semitism is bad! Racism is bad! Homophobia is bad! Crush the patriarchy! Yeehaw, women are great! I got it the first time. Really.
The rest is just bad fan fiction. The main character goes back in time and makes out and has sex with long-dead women from history, including the ghost of Radclyffe Hall. The scene includes the phrase "Hannah smelled...the secret hidden sweat of one of history's greatest butches, and Hannah felt the impossible waves of a ghost-given orgasm start to unfold." I don't even know what to say.
November 7, 2025
God I love women and history and time travel and women
December 12, 2018
Hannah Stern is about to take a journey through time and space. She’s dedicated her life to teaching women’s history, bringing to light all of the lost female heroes of the past. Now she’s going to visit their times and stand at those women’s sides. At times, she’ll lose herself in their arms. For Sappho’s Bar and Grill is no ordinary watering house and its proprietor, Isabel, is anything but ordinary.
This was a magical narrative, slipping in and out of Hannah’s life and time, into the lives of the women she admired. At times, I felt their voices were eclipsed by hers, evoking a modern sensibility that didn’t quite ring true. At others, it was strikingly, sensually vivid, offering a heartfelt realism and a textured surrealism. It was Hannah’s journey, though, and her perspective was what shaped the story, with all her strengths, weaknesses, anger, and insight, which fleshed her out as three dimensional character. Parts of this tale made me angry, seething at the judgmental behavior of others, how Hannah and other characters almost became part of it, casting a pall over the wonder. At other times, my jaw dropped at her courage and level-headedness in a few situations where I would have raged. The best moments turned the intimate moments between women into a steamy, otherworldly, yet introspective scene of transcendence where realities lapped over each other, yet had all the tenderness of a pair of individuals discovering each other.
If any of these qualities interest you, check this book out.
This was a magical narrative, slipping in and out of Hannah’s life and time, into the lives of the women she admired. At times, I felt their voices were eclipsed by hers, evoking a modern sensibility that didn’t quite ring true. At others, it was strikingly, sensually vivid, offering a heartfelt realism and a textured surrealism. It was Hannah’s journey, though, and her perspective was what shaped the story, with all her strengths, weaknesses, anger, and insight, which fleshed her out as three dimensional character. Parts of this tale made me angry, seething at the judgmental behavior of others, how Hannah and other characters almost became part of it, casting a pall over the wonder. At other times, my jaw dropped at her courage and level-headedness in a few situations where I would have raged. The best moments turned the intimate moments between women into a steamy, otherworldly, yet introspective scene of transcendence where realities lapped over each other, yet had all the tenderness of a pair of individuals discovering each other.
If any of these qualities interest you, check this book out.
October 28, 2017
Whatever happened to the good old days when women’s studies students had crushes on tired dyke professors? These days, most students just wanted an easy A. Others seemed to take sadistic pleasure in correcting her, mid-lecture, with facts gleaned from laptop Wikipedia pages: material they preferred to the reading she carefully planned, assigned, and distributed hot from the ancient photocopier in Irwin Hall. She grabbed her green suede jacket and headed for the faculty parking lot and the safe sanctuary of her twenty-year-old Honda Civic, a limping animal held together with outdated feminist bumper stickers. Once inside, she sank behind the wheel, ripped off her bra (a ritual indicating the teaching day had officially ended), and cranked up a CD by the cover band called Lez Zeppelin. Strains of “Kashmir”thudded. Burned out didn’t come close to describing her state of mind. The initials were right, though; take your pick. Boiling Over. Bailing Out. Body Odor. Breaking Off—yes, she was brittle. Time to go see Isabel, to unwind at the coolest bar in the world—..."
May 7, 2018
I DNFd around half-way through bc... honestly, I don't really know, it was boring and self-centered? We're told by everyone but her (bc she has self-confidence issues apparently?) that the MC is this amazing woman, and I just could not see it.
But what really made me stop was the fact that, despite the MC's mentions of adding women of color to her teachings and being appalled at the lesbian community's racism (which now of course feel more than perfunctory), the book, half-way through that I got, never mentioned any woman of color, apart from a Greek Sappho, which does not exactly count, and a whitewashed ("olive skin" and "a strong Jewish nose") Miriam (Moses' sister). You cannot have your character deplore anti-semitism and racism (amongst others) in one breath and have the entire story be racist and whitewash Jewish history with all your other breaths...
But what really made me stop was the fact that, despite the MC's mentions of adding women of color to her teachings and being appalled at the lesbian community's racism (which now of course feel more than perfunctory), the book, half-way through that I got, never mentioned any woman of color, apart from a Greek Sappho, which does not exactly count, and a whitewashed ("olive skin" and "a strong Jewish nose") Miriam (Moses' sister). You cannot have your character deplore anti-semitism and racism (amongst others) in one breath and have the entire story be racist and whitewash Jewish history with all your other breaths...
Read
October 1, 2021I had been rec'd this book a while back and only remembered the bare minimum about it, and even that wasn't enough, because I thought this book was going to be a sci-fi romp where the bar was in space? I am so clearly wrong and reading the summary would have clearly informed me that was the case. Anyway, you know what they say about assuming...
After realizing Hannah was not going to hop in a rocket and go to another planet, *facepalm* I settled in for what the story was really about and learned a lot. It's a quieter story that's focused on Hannah and her passion for women's' history. That's the majority of the plot. The will they-won't they bit with Isabell is something I got tired of. I did love getting to meet the other regulars of the bar and wish the reader was able to spend more time with them.
After realizing Hannah was not going to hop in a rocket and go to another planet, *facepalm* I settled in for what the story was really about and learned a lot. It's a quieter story that's focused on Hannah and her passion for women's' history. That's the majority of the plot. The will they-won't they bit with Isabell is something I got tired of. I did love getting to meet the other regulars of the bar and wish the reader was able to spend more time with them.
December 18, 2020
I don't even know if I have the right words to describe this novel.
It was good, academically so. Well-written, thoroughly researched. If all the facts about the women in the past were right, then this book deserves so much appreciation.
It focuses so much more on the women who lived and worked for the sapphic comunity, than on the people living the present moment, and even less on any form of romance (only at the end is there a form of happily ever after?) and Hannah was just the chosen one. If those are right, I am humbled.
Highly recommened.
It was good, academically so. Well-written, thoroughly researched. If all the facts about the women in the past were right, then this book deserves so much appreciation.
It focuses so much more on the women who lived and worked for the sapphic comunity, than on the people living the present moment, and even less on any form of romance (only at the end is there a form of happily ever after?) and Hannah was just the chosen one. If those are right, I am humbled.
Highly recommened.
April 26, 2019
So I loved this concept, but the book didn't work that well for me. I really did like how the author brought women from history to life, but I wasn't that keen on the main character. I found her to be a little biphobic at times, and I didn't particularly see why she was portrayed as 'such an amazing woman'. It was still a pretty enjoyable book though, and I do love a good lesbian science fiction story as that is rare!
April 19, 2019
This was a very interesting book, in a good way. It was unique and beautifully written and richly weaving together important ideas and women throughout history. I think the end lost me a bit to be honest but overall, well done.
December 20, 2017
I wanted to like it but it just wasn’t very good.
July 8, 2020
I liked the history of different women in this. I looked up more history about these women when reading this one.
January 26, 2022
I liked the exploration of lesbian history and the time travel - but found the writing and the way the ending tied things together clunky.
April 4, 2022
such an awesome book
This book was such an enjoyable read that had me dreaming of my own time travel. I would definitely read again.
This book was such an enjoyable read that had me dreaming of my own time travel. I would definitely read again.
May 15, 2022
I think this book could have acceptably been 200 pages longer. The "flash back" proteins seemed too short, and I longer for more.
Clearly it was good, though, since I wanted so much more from it!
Clearly it was good, though, since I wanted so much more from it!
August 1, 2017
‘Burned out didn’t come close to describing her state of mind’
Lauded author Bonnie J. Morris has written thirteen books – including the immensely important THE DISAPPEARING L: ERASURE OF LESBIAN SPACES AND CULTURE, WOMEN’S HISTORY FOR BEGINNERS, and now SAPPHO’S BAR AND GRILL - and is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. In 2012, she was awarded the Finishing Lines Press New Women’s Voices Prize for The Schoolgirl’s Atlas. She teaches Women’s Studies at Georgetown University and George Washington University, serves as a leader for the College Board U.S. History Exam, as a consultant to Disney Animation, and as a scholarly adviser to the National Women’s History Museum which will be built on or adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Though much of her work focuses on history and the gradual rise of acceptance of lesbian literature and stature, this book is a bit of retrospection, imagination, wishful thinking, and finely tuned humor presented as a time travel novel. As the brief synopsis states, ‘Each month for a full year, the holiday parties and theme nights at Sappho's Bar & Grill spin lonely Hannah Stern into the past when she least expects it. Through her sexy encounters with foremothers ranging from Lilith to Sappho, through Radclyffe Hall to the All American Girls Baseball League, Hannah learns much about herself and women’s survival across time.’
But the book is so much more than that fine distillation. As her press release states, ‘Lonely women’s history professor Hannah Stern walks into her local lesbian bar on winter night, seeking love advice from her old friend and bartender Isabel. : Women’s history will be my date this year!” Hannah raises her glass in sarcastic tribute, resigned to life as a scholar, but her remark sets in motion a wild, sexy-smart romp through time. Much to her astonishment, Hannah soon finds herself meeting up with the actual figures and foremothers she assigns her college students to learn about. She’s caught in a time-travel vortex; one that seemingly emanates form Sappho’s Bar and Grill. What are these figures trying to tell Hannah? Will she find romance with women who loved women in the past or will she take a chance on her friend Isabel, whose drinks and potions seem to hold the secret of time travel itself? The novel comes alive with the community of womanhood, with generations coming together to discuss history, politics, sexuality, and patriarchal notions that still somehow dominate popular opinion. Its language is vivid yet quick, both darkly funny and keenly poignant, and its imagery is razor sharp.’
It is doubtful that anyone could make this book more inviting – except for the lucky readers to plunge into Bonnie’s (Hannah’s) splendid tale. Highly Recommended.
Lauded author Bonnie J. Morris has written thirteen books – including the immensely important THE DISAPPEARING L: ERASURE OF LESBIAN SPACES AND CULTURE, WOMEN’S HISTORY FOR BEGINNERS, and now SAPPHO’S BAR AND GRILL - and is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. In 2012, she was awarded the Finishing Lines Press New Women’s Voices Prize for The Schoolgirl’s Atlas. She teaches Women’s Studies at Georgetown University and George Washington University, serves as a leader for the College Board U.S. History Exam, as a consultant to Disney Animation, and as a scholarly adviser to the National Women’s History Museum which will be built on or adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Though much of her work focuses on history and the gradual rise of acceptance of lesbian literature and stature, this book is a bit of retrospection, imagination, wishful thinking, and finely tuned humor presented as a time travel novel. As the brief synopsis states, ‘Each month for a full year, the holiday parties and theme nights at Sappho's Bar & Grill spin lonely Hannah Stern into the past when she least expects it. Through her sexy encounters with foremothers ranging from Lilith to Sappho, through Radclyffe Hall to the All American Girls Baseball League, Hannah learns much about herself and women’s survival across time.’
But the book is so much more than that fine distillation. As her press release states, ‘Lonely women’s history professor Hannah Stern walks into her local lesbian bar on winter night, seeking love advice from her old friend and bartender Isabel. : Women’s history will be my date this year!” Hannah raises her glass in sarcastic tribute, resigned to life as a scholar, but her remark sets in motion a wild, sexy-smart romp through time. Much to her astonishment, Hannah soon finds herself meeting up with the actual figures and foremothers she assigns her college students to learn about. She’s caught in a time-travel vortex; one that seemingly emanates form Sappho’s Bar and Grill. What are these figures trying to tell Hannah? Will she find romance with women who loved women in the past or will she take a chance on her friend Isabel, whose drinks and potions seem to hold the secret of time travel itself? The novel comes alive with the community of womanhood, with generations coming together to discuss history, politics, sexuality, and patriarchal notions that still somehow dominate popular opinion. Its language is vivid yet quick, both darkly funny and keenly poignant, and its imagery is razor sharp.’
It is doubtful that anyone could make this book more inviting – except for the lucky readers to plunge into Bonnie’s (Hannah’s) splendid tale. Highly Recommended.
January 8, 2018
I liked this book. Some parts of it where a bit strange but still in a good way. I loved the way women and the lesbian community is described by the author. The book was quite academic at times, which worked for me, but if you're not into that it might be a bit to much.
December 9, 2017
The thanksgiving travel back in time scene is fucked up.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews