Fatal Women

by Tanith Lee, Esther Garber

pp. 19 396.

Genres: Fantasy, LGBT, Fiction, Queer, Short Stories, Lesbian

412 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2004

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.

Reviews

[Corrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well then… I’m dumbstruck by the beauty of this book. Tanith Lee writing as her alter-ego Esther Garber has found a place in my heart. I loved everything about Fatal Women: The Esther Garber Novellas, just every single story. I can’t begin to describe my feelings even though I’m full to bursting with them. So yeah, a very good book renders me basically into a cavewoman. What I do know is that this book has spoiled me for a great many reads in my future because sadly not many can compare.

Wikipedia about the author’s style:

“Lee's style is frequently remarked upon for its use of rich poetic prose and striking imagery. Critics describe her style as weird, lush, vibrant, exotic, erotic, rich, elegant, perverse, and darkly beautiful. The technique she uses is very descriptive and poetic which works well with the themes she uses in her mythical stories. She has been praised for her ability to balance her weird style with the challenges of writing a faraway world, but some critics counter that her style is not always easy on the reader; she sometimes leaves the reader with unanswered questions that could have easily been answered if she had gone into greater detail.”

f/f sensual but not explicit in any way

Themes: wow, this goes straight to my top 5 of 2018, I’m completely enamoured by her weirdness, I know I’m not explaining this book very well but it’s something you can only find out by reading it yourself.

I suggest you pay attention to what Mavis Haut explains in the afterword of the book because it only adds to the experience.

5 stars don’t do it enough justice.

[Althea Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - this book is great. One of Tanith Lee's best - and I love Tanith Lee. I don't really understand the pseudonym - the conceit is that she wrote these stories as if she were an imaginary author called Esther Garber - but, believe me, the style is all Lee.

Rherlotte
A woman, after agreeing to do away with a couple of abusive husbands, finds herself emotionally obsessed with the bereaved mistress of one of the men she's killed.

Virgile, The Widow
An elderly woman who, for years, has run a salon for women at her manor house, decides to retire before dying - and to hire an infamous courtesan to be her companion in her last days. One of the young habituees of her salon develops an unhealthy obsession with the courtesan...

The Umbrella/The Woman Under The Umbrella/Rain
A story in three parts. This was apparently co-written - Lee did the first part (which is by far the best), another author wrote the response, and then they collaborated on the conclusion. Love at first sight, thwarted by misapprehensions...

Green Iris
A typist, after encountering an alluring woman at a party, inveigles her way into being hired to type the woman's husband's work (he's an author). Unfortunately for her, the wife seems to have no inclination toward women - but the husband sets his sights on pressuring his typist into becoming his mistress.

Le Jardin
A ruthless and wealthy collector is bent on pressuring a poverty-stricken woman into selling him a valuable drawing by a famous artist, which he is sure that she owns. The only blatantly 'fantastic' piece in the book, it speaks eloquently about the pricelessness of art, and the richness it brings to our lives.

All of these stories are incredibly beautiful. There are few writings that I read and say, "YES - that is how I think." This did that.

The 'official' description of the book makes much of the lesbian content, but none of these are really erotic - though they are certainly sensual. At time I was reminded of both Anais Nin and Sarah Waters (the salon in 'Virgile' reminded me quite a lot of Diana's house in 'Tipping the Velvet.')

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Rherlotte ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. Virgile, The Widow ⭐⭐⭐⭐
3. The Umbrella ⭐⭐
4. Green Iris ⭐⭐⭐
5. Femme Fatal ⭐⭐⭐
6. Le Jardin ⭐⭐⭐

Afterword by Mavis Haut

[Craig Laurance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark surrealistic lesbian erotic. Like Sarah Waters on acid.

[Ming · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some really phenomenal writing here. I liked all of the stories, some I was quite impressed by just the quality of writing (e.g. Rherlotte) and some by both the prose and the actual story told (e.g. Virgile, the Widow and Green Iris), others I liked okay but were still pretty decent (e.g. Femme Fatale, The Umbrella).

In the past, I've always found Tanith Lee a bit indulgent, and this indulgence sometimes hangs over her writing like a persistent mould but here, man is her writing unbelievably sharp. I didn't know she could be this precise with details without fussing over them, and weave them altogether so cohesively. I think it's fair to say that Lee definitely has mastered the short story form very well here, resulting in a short story collection that definitely qualifies as one of her best works. I was surprised by how moved I was by Virgile, the Widow - I seriously thought we were going to get a typical ending where Laure hires Virgile and some really disturbing shit ensues. But there was none of that. There is a beautiful tension winding this entire story tight, and while I found the concept of a bunch of village women going to a castle to indulge in lesbian sex a bit far-fetched, I was sold on pretty much the rest of the story.

Also, question: why the motif of the women having striking green eyes? I'm curious. It can't be envy, can it?

4.5 stars but I'm rounding up!

[Anilea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never expected the book to be that good.
The prose, the aestheticism, the deep emotional and mental sways of the characters and their desires were all so highlighted and yet ever so masterfully subtle.
I never experienced such amorous joy from reading since the last time i read Anaïs Nin’s short stories.
And, here’s the thing. The late Nin was a queer woman. Tanith Lee, is not.
Which made me feel uncomfortable before reading the book.
Until I actually did. A straight woman can’t write something as queer and sensual as this.
The pen name is not a mere name, it’s a whole new persona with a past and a history both lush and vivid.
It explains so much and leaves so much to wonder and ponders about.
Truth to be told, it was a delightful read. And I can’t wait to pick her other Persona’a collection, too.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novellas and short stories populated by Tanith Lee's strong, sometimes cold and bitter heroines. Sensuous descriptions and a elegant handling of lesbian themes. Best enjoyed on a cold day with a glass of spiced wine.

[Jean Roberta]

There are various definitions of the term “fatal woman,” a literal translation of the French term “femme fatale.” Wikipedia claims that she “is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art. Her ability to entrance and hypnotise her victim with a spell was in the earliest stories seen as being literally supernatural; hence, the femme fatale today is still often described as having a power akin to [that of] an enchantress, seductress, vampire, witch, or demon, having some power over men.”

Femmes fatale abound in the art and literature of the nineteenth century, when most real women had no economic, political or physical power over men, and little power over anyone. A general suspicion that women could wield supernatural power actually seems to date from the witch-mania of the Christian Inquisition (approximately 1480-1700). Yet the theme of the fatal enchantress seems immortal, whether it comes from a fear of women or from women’s own dreams of power.

Tanith Lee’s “fatal women” (in a collection of six novellas) are different from the nineteenth-century cliché in several ways: they are all sexually attracted to other women (although they use the term “lesbian” sparingly), their stories span a period longer than a human life, from the mid-nineteenth century to the aftermath of the Second World War, and they are all attributed to one of Tanith Lee’s alter egos, Esther Garber.

Mavis Haut, a scholar who has studied Lee’s work, explains “Esther Garber” in an afterword:

“When Tanith Lee writes as Esther Garber, we hear a voice that belongs to a well-defined personality. . . This new writer-in-residence sets Lee free from her better known writing past and opens the way to new directions.”

Actually, the writer “Esther Garber” seems to be a chameleon in these long stories, which are all told in first-person (by an “I”) or limited third-person, focusing on a character whose thoughts and feelings are on display. Each “fatal woman” is different from the others.

The characters in these novellas are driven by the kind of erotic passion that drives the central characters in operas, but there is not much explicit sexual description.

The first novella, “Rherlotte,” begins with a scene in Paris, in an expensive but slightly disreputable restaurant where a young woman is dining with a man who clearly intends to seduce her, while horse-drawn carriages splash through the rain outdoors. All is not as it seems.

The man, Armand, is married to a woman he ignores, who loves him desperately. And the narrator has a mother and a grandmother she describes as “whores. Mind you, whores of a valuable sort. The cared-for sort. Courtesans, perhaps.” Although the narrator has been brought up to take a strictly practical approach to affairs with men, she is capable of becoming fascinated by a woman, even one who has a grudge against her. The final scene of this story is as gruesome as that of any romantic tragedy.

None of these novellas deals with the supernatural in an obvious way, but there is a certain uncanniness in all of them. In the novella “Femme Fatale,” an Englishwoman has simply disappeared while travelling in France with her female lover, who is distraught. Did the absent woman ever really exist? If so, why do none of the locals claim to have seen her? The narrator, travelling with her own controlling, intolerant female companion, is attracted to Iren, the one who is frantic to find out what happened to hers.

As in a horror movie, the landscape seems to be littered with subtle clues, and even objects (as in a Stephen King plot) have wills of their own. The narrator explains:

“My companion, whom I shall call Munne for want of anything better, also had a little car. And in this being we had been driving—or the car had, it possessed a dark soul of its own—across the swooping plains of the region, littered with enormous rocks, and flayed by unsparing sunlight the color of bleached Sauterne.”

The mystery of the missing woman and the intentions of the demon car are never really resolved, but Esther, the narrator, has an epiphany about her own immersion in a submissive role before this term was used in classified ads.

"The Umbrella,” the shortest piece in the book, is about a kind of aborted relationship. Sarah, the central character, notices a young woman who often crosses paths with her. Sarah develops an obsessive curiosity about “The Sugar Girl” (who buys grocery items, including sugar). One rainy day, Sarah is able to offer the shelter of her umbrella to “The Sugar Girl,” who accepts. This incident, which would have been the opening scene in a lesbian romance, turns out to be bittersweet, since Sarah never sees the object of her crush again. The memory of what might have been haunts Sarah for years, longer than she might have been affected by a deep friendship or a past love affair.

“Virgile, The Widow,” could be described as a kind of black comedy. An imaginative teenage girl, stuck in a provincial French town where there is not much to do, is fascinated by the title character, who seems to be a wife-for-hire by rich, dying men who leave her their fortunes. When Virgile is contracted by the local female aristocrat known as “La Reine,” young Laure is appalled but envious. A brief glimpse of Virgile without her clothes suggests that she is only human, not the symbolic figure of Lady Death that Laure would like to believe in.

“Le Jardin,” a story with a clearly supernatural component, is possibly the most moving. A French woman painter has become famous after her death, and a persistent male art-collector has tracked down Rachel, a woman who met the painter through her parents and who is rumoured to own one of her drawings. Unexplained smells and bird songs float through Rachel’s apartment while she tells the collector that unfortunately, she no longer has the sketch.

Although Rachel seems to be honest when she claims that she and Avrilenne, the artist, were never lovers, Rachel seems to be the keeper of her spirit. The sketch depicts an actual garden on the grounds of a French chateau in which atrocities were committed during the Nazi occupation of France, and which was then destroyed by the French Resistance. Like innocence in the Garden of Eden, the beauty of the real garden at its best lives on in the sketch, which Rachel would never sell for any price.

Tanith Lee, under any pen name, has a signature touch. The stock figure of the “fatal woman” takes on new life, so to speak, in this collection.

[pareidolia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tanith Lee writing as Esther Garber, novellas and short stories about women loving and desiring women, a desire that's sometimes obsessive and destructive, sometimes restrained and selfless, always complex. Stylistically more straightforward than Lee's earlier works, the individual pieces are still masterfully crafted and beautifully written.

My favorite story was Virgile, the Widow: set in the late 19th century, it follows Laure - petty, spiteful, arrogant Laure - and her friends to "Women's Nights" entertained by an elderly female country aristrocrat; a respite for queer women to get away from men and be with one another. One day Laure meets Virgile, rumored to be a "professional widow" offering her companionship to the old and dying. This meeting sparks a very Gothic romanticism within Laure, mixing sexual desire with a wish for death.

[Teki Pawsome · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mavis Haut's afterword made quite a difference for me about those stories). I actually wasn't very much enjoying the book, first two novels being about the miserable spoiled rich women, too melodramatic (though with satisfactory endings, i must admit), the third story being too short with a common "everyday life" kind of plot... Well, other three stories were quite nice, with seemingly quite ordinary plots too though.
But something was bothering me. The writing was too good - beautiful, poetic, erotic, surreal and old-English. Also i had this feeling that i might give it some time before writing a review. You know, it's the same as with men - sometimes you think you loved the book, but after awhile you start to dislike it and vice versa.
And then i read the afterword, and it made those seemingly common incompatible buds of stories to bloom in a really nice garden of a book.
I would actually suggest to read it before the stories to appreciate them and to reflect upon them better, to see the link between them.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was marketed as "Tanith Lee's Lesbian Erotica!" and it wasn't! One of the stories had very mild descriptions of women having sex. I think it should have just been, More stories about women by Tanith Lee. I did LOVE the first story. It was really well crafted, glorious transitions and a compelling narrative. I liked the characters and the setting. Unfortunately everything afterwards was a let down in comparison. The castle of lesbians was a bit silly. The rest quite mundane. The story about the woman who got obsessed with a woman and then let her husband start an affair with her was tedious to the point of unpleasantness. I couldn't believe ANY queer woman would act like that. Even a bisexual one. And the ending was just very odd. But I'm glad I got it for the first story.