LAUREL.

by Isabel Miller

In her richest most deeply intimate novel ever, the beloved author of Patience and Sarah brings you a woman you will never forget...

Genres: LGBT, Fiction, Lesbian, Feminism

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Isabel Miller was the pen name of Alma Routsong, an American novelist best known for her lesbian fiction. She graduated from Michigan State University in 1949 with a degree in art. Her first two novels (A Gradual Joy and Round Shape) were published under her own name, with the later works under the pen name Isabel Miller — a combination of an anagram of “Lesbia” and her mother’s maiden name.

In 1969, Isabel Miller published her best known book, A Place for Us, printed in an edition of 1,000 copies paid for and sold by the author. With this title, based on a true story of a 19th-century couple from New York state, Miller began her career as lesbian novelist. In 1971, the novel won the first annual Gay Book Award of the American Library Association. Under its later title, Patience and Sarah, Miller’s novel became one of the most cherished lesbian love story of all time.

Isabel Miller died in Poughkeepsie, New York on October 4, 1996, shortly before her last novel (Laurel) was published.

Reviews

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

she's known as a pioneer of early lesbian fiction, and this is the first isabel miller novel i've read that isn't quite historical fiction... but in a way it is, with the central chapters taking place "then," in the 1970s, when lucille and laurel first meet. these chapters are bookended with "now" chapters at the beginning and end of the book, when laurel comes back to speak to lucille in the modern-day 1990s.

it's miller's final novel, and it's so very dated, seeping with second wave feminism and 70s dyke drama. our protagonist, lucille, is in her 40s in the 1970s (so she's of miller's own generation). her age gap relationship with laurel, who's in her 20s, means that laurel is a baby boomer. it's surreal to read about the boomers as the young generation, wild and full of potential. oh, how things change!

also super dated: several characters of the young boomer generation are caught between their relationships with men and their relationships with women, as though they need to gradually stave off their impulses toward men and commit themselves to lesbianism. at one point lucille's daughter, beck, mentions bisexuality, and lucille instantly dismisses it as a copout, before apologizing and attempting, with difficulty, to open her mind: "She could be her mixed-up self, it was okay. She could love women without getting clobbered and without getting stuck in some little by-way of life, because she could get along with men too." still not a great perspective, but fairly progressive considering the black-and-white views of sexuality at the time. the shoutout to kate millet is cool too!!

anyway. most of this little novella is composed of dialogue, and it's strange dialogue. we have stubborn lucille, slippery young laurel, lucille's daughter beck (who is also taken with laurel), and a series of lucille's other lovers (notably two butches, an ex named vera and a new love named peg). they all have deep talks, incessantly psychoanalyzing each other and stretching each other's boundaries. it's interesting, but god, it seems exhausting.

the book is a fun dip into 1970s lesbian culture and exploration of different types of relationships. it is so hard for any person to truly understand another. and the strange dysfunctional web of relationships reminds me a bit of the l word! interesting, but not particularly memorable.

the most enjoyable part of the book for me is miller's bittersweet, deceptively straightforward writing style. i feel like i could curl up on lucille's couch for the night, and awaken in the morning to the smell of breakfast and the sound of women talking in the kitchen. it's cozy.

also, there's no literary sex more lovely than sapphic literary sex:

I lifted her hips and held her up to my mouth like a cup.

。。。

Laurel took a long perfumed bath by candlelight. I sat on the toilet life enjoying the beauty of her dim wet body, as I would have enjoyed a sunset or an apple orchard in bloom, feeling peaceful.

[Briar Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Isabel Miller's last book, and also her least popular. I can see why. The main character, Lucille, is a difficult person to like, and so is the titular character, Laurel. But the book isn't really about either of them. It's about the many kinds of relationships two women can have with one another, and the huge unbridgeable gap that lies between any two people trying to understand and love one another. As people we somehow have to figure out a way to negotiate this gap with language, kindness, the body, laughter, cruelty, manipulation, and every other tool at our disposal. Like the characters do with each other in the book, the reader has to work to understand and love them. In amidst all the conflict are the simple moments of domestic happiness that Miller is so good at describing - she really is the spiritual successor to Jane Austen.

This is a raw and sometimes painful novel, but it's also highly stylised in that peculiar direct way Miller has. The characters talk to one another in a kind of poetic shorthand, and it's more evident here than in any of her other books. At first I read it with less enjoyment than The Love of Good Women or Side by Side, but the characters' struggles and Miller's startling, elegant, perfect prose crept up on me. By the end I was completely won over. I wouldn't recommend this as someone's first introduction to Miller, but if you enjoy her work it's worth reading this book, especially for the glorious last line. No one knows quite how to end a book as beautifully as Isabel Miller.

[Abilouise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did lesbians ever actually talk like this? I feel really bad if this is how my fore-mothers dated. Most of this book is lesbians having these drag-out psychoanalysis conversations. I just kind of wanted to send the younger one to trauma-literate therapy and the older one out to meet new people. I was disappointed to not like this book more, because I really like this author a lot in general. The non-dialogue parts were really enjoyable.

[Michelle Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was like reading a series of conversations. I felt like I was a fly on a wall of Lucille's wall. It was quick read and I like the way Miller writes. I think the women are very flawed in her books but they always seem to find their way.

[MiserableFlower · Rating 1 out of 5]

80s style unhappy ending lgbt story. not worth a read.

[s.a.west · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trash that should have never been written. embarrasses me as a lesbian.