What do you think?
Rate this book
Tasting Life Twice
This Lambda Literary Award anthology showcases the diverse visions of literary lesbian writers--women who have loved women and write from that place; includes great pieces by terrific writers such as Mary Gaitskill, Cheryl Strayed, Ana Castillo, Carole Maso, Carol Anshaw, Stephanie Grant, and others.
344 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
2 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
E.J. Levy
9 books89 followersEJ Levy’s debut novel, THE CAPE DOCTOR (Little Brown), was named a NEW YORK TIMES Editors’ Choice book, one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of Summer, and won a 2022 Colorado Book Award. A French edition was published by L'Olivier in 2023 and won the 2024 Prix Libr'a Nous for Foreign Fiction. Her story collection, LOVE, IN THEORY, won a Flannery O’Connor Award and GLCA New Writers Award for Fiction; KIRKUS named it a Best Indie Book of the Year. Levy’s anthology, TASTING LIFE TWICE: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers, won a Lambda Literary Award. Her work has appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PARIS REVIEW, KENYON REVIEW, THE WASHINGTON POST, BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, ORION, and THE NATION, and has been twice named among Distinguished Stories in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 19, 2026
I’m pretty sure the point of this collection of short stories was to proof that good lesbian literature does exist. However, the majority of the stories in this book are straight up terrible. Thanks god it’s not 1995 anymore!
January 5, 2013
There were only a handful of stories in this collection that I thought were worthwhile, and only one I actually liked - an excerpt from Carol Anshaw's book Aquamarine.
November 13, 2023
Jesus Christ, this was exhausting to read. There were a lot of very pretentious and experimental stories in here, and there were a couple of disturbing ones, too. Notably "Every day and Every Night" by Rebecca Brown, which made me madly uncomfortable and kind of nauseous and extremely glad once I was done reading it, and also one that had incest between two sisters, which I'm not going to bother trying to find the title of. This anthology very much bears the imprint of its times; it was published in 1995, and it's especially noticeable to me because I just read another lesbian short story anthology published in the early 80's, I think, with a very different current of thought; this anthology was written by the reactionary, liberal rather than radical feminist, pro-porn, pro-bdsm, Gale Rubin, postmodernist-type school of lesbian thought, and the previous anthology I read was by radical lesbian feminists. And since you can see my rating, you can tell that I obviously have a preference. Also, wow, there was a lot of heterosexual sex in this book for a lesbian anthology! Very delightful to find here. Yes, I understand what the editor means in that it's hard to define "lesbian writing", and that the only thing defining it should be that it's writing by lesbian authors, somewhat, but I really do think it's not so hard to define as Levy thinks. Also, the last story in here was so boring and painful to get through. It was ULTRA experimental, didn't even really have a plot and was extremely confusing, and it felt like the author had just vomited all over the page. I kept checking how many pages I had left and trying to pay attention to the writing, all while extremely irritated. Blah. Okay, I did like some stories in here, though. There are two quotations I marked, which I will share:
"I also say distracted, because, as I lay so quietly next to my young husband in the dark, I did what I had been doing off and on for ages: I thought about women--one woman at a time, actually, although usually one I didn't know very well. Sometimes it was a woman I had seen on the street or in a movie, a waitress downtown, a traffic cop. A doctor. A woman, one of two, sitting across from me on a bus, with a gym bag. This woman had to be taller than me, and rougher, with slightly tired, experienced eyes--the better to see right into me, like the beam of a flashlight playing over a darkened house. I did meet women now and then who had this particular, experienced look about them; when I was near them I felt much larger or much smaller than usual, much softer, infinitely shyer, and dangerous. With Tim, fair play was paramount; we were the world's tiniest, best-run democracy. But with this woman, I'd be caught like a bird in a nest and soon I'd be running through the rain, late for appointments, late for dinner, late for everything." (192-3)
"You don't tell your boyfriend what you tell me, that when we're together, you don't have to be all the women on billboards smiling with their mouths open, their eyes closed. You don't have to hold in your stomach. You can just be a plain old person. This is scary to you, you're not sure how to do this." (217-8)
"I also say distracted, because, as I lay so quietly next to my young husband in the dark, I did what I had been doing off and on for ages: I thought about women--one woman at a time, actually, although usually one I didn't know very well. Sometimes it was a woman I had seen on the street or in a movie, a waitress downtown, a traffic cop. A doctor. A woman, one of two, sitting across from me on a bus, with a gym bag. This woman had to be taller than me, and rougher, with slightly tired, experienced eyes--the better to see right into me, like the beam of a flashlight playing over a darkened house. I did meet women now and then who had this particular, experienced look about them; when I was near them I felt much larger or much smaller than usual, much softer, infinitely shyer, and dangerous. With Tim, fair play was paramount; we were the world's tiniest, best-run democracy. But with this woman, I'd be caught like a bird in a nest and soon I'd be running through the rain, late for appointments, late for dinner, late for everything." (192-3)
"You don't tell your boyfriend what you tell me, that when we're together, you don't have to be all the women on billboards smiling with their mouths open, their eyes closed. You don't have to hold in your stomach. You can just be a plain old person. This is scary to you, you're not sure how to do this." (217-8)
Read
May 20, 2024Mainly I read the section "Excerpts from the Sapphic Diary of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz" by Alicia Gaspar de Alba. It appears to be faithful to my image of Sor Juana.
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." Anais Nin
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." Anais Nin
July 14, 2010
This is from 1995. I found it at the library. The intro is worth the price, actually twice the price (as it was free). I might post about it in an area more conducive to discussion, because it's a fascinating topic--what is lesbian fiction anyway?
Basically, this sets out to respond to (if not answer) what has sadly become an age-old question, "Why is lesbian fiction so bad?" (The editor's answer to my first question is, fiction by lesbians.)
Can't say as this is a resounding answer of "It doesn't suck, it's great!" Well, some of these are quite good, some are completely incomprehensible. Fiction, IMHO, shouldn't use footnotes. Some completely lack story, despite being very well written. Not all are about lesbians.
Among the contributors: Stacey D'Erasmo, Mary Gaitskill and E. J. Graff (because she's local) were the only ones I'd heard of. Googling a few to see what they've been up to since, brought interesting results. Of the several sites mentioning Carole Maso, the word lesbian only appears on Wikipedia in the title of this book under her credits. Ana Castillo's Wikipedia has this, "Many of her protagonists are fiercely independent, sometimes lesbian, women." Other sites....nothing. Rebecca Brown: Ah, "Rebecca Brown is an American lesbian[1:] author whose work has contributed significantly to contemporary gay and lesbian literature." And another, "Jenifer Levin is an American fiction writer, noted for her contributions to lesbian fiction." Why she's even a member of the "lesbian literati."
At any rate, an interesting book.
ETA: This book is not out of print.
Basically, this sets out to respond to (if not answer) what has sadly become an age-old question, "Why is lesbian fiction so bad?" (The editor's answer to my first question is, fiction by lesbians.)
Can't say as this is a resounding answer of "It doesn't suck, it's great!" Well, some of these are quite good, some are completely incomprehensible. Fiction, IMHO, shouldn't use footnotes. Some completely lack story, despite being very well written. Not all are about lesbians.
Among the contributors: Stacey D'Erasmo, Mary Gaitskill and E. J. Graff (because she's local) were the only ones I'd heard of. Googling a few to see what they've been up to since, brought interesting results. Of the several sites mentioning Carole Maso, the word lesbian only appears on Wikipedia in the title of this book under her credits. Ana Castillo's Wikipedia has this, "Many of her protagonists are fiercely independent, sometimes lesbian, women." Other sites....nothing. Rebecca Brown: Ah, "Rebecca Brown is an American lesbian[1:] author whose work has contributed significantly to contemporary gay and lesbian literature." And another, "Jenifer Levin is an American fiction writer, noted for her contributions to lesbian fiction." Why she's even a member of the "lesbian literati."
At any rate, an interesting book.
ETA: This book is not out of print.
February 14, 2011
Fantastic book, with a lot of really great stories from lesbian writers who've gone onto build up great literary reputations in the years since it was published. Stand outs are Stephanie Grant's "Posting Up," Stacy D'Erasmo's "Latitude" and the piece by Carol Anshaw excerpted from "Aquamarine."
May 5, 2021
A wonderful collection of short stories by terrific writers, a much needed book to add to our literary landscape.
April 6, 2011
This won a Lambda Literary Award and has great pieces by terrific writers like Cheryl Strayed, Carole Maso, Stephanie Grant, and others.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews