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With Her Body
Finalist for the Lambda SF award With Her Body presents three pieces of short fiction by the Nebula-, Lambda-, and Tiptree-award winning Nicola Griffith. What are these three intense stories about? Hope, joy, the body; mainly joy and the body—feeling the world on our skin, which is the place where Us and Not-Us meet. Nicola Griffith writes about being as well as doing—about life and love and the fears that keep us from having what we want. About feeling stuff, and making decisions, not sitting at home like a passive lump. Reviews ”In a world where most visual stories—and quite a few found in books—don't even pass the Bechdel Test, reading tales that are wholly and unapologetically about women's desire, and in which women's desire for other women is taken as a given rather than as a deviation to be preceded by agonised soul-searching, certainly made for a few double takes. But it was also enormously refreshing.” Nicola Clarke, Eve's Alexandria ”…intimate, sexy, and rich with good old-fashioned storytelling. That sounds like joy to me.” AfterEllen.com ”...haunting, fiercely women-oriented tales of lesbians making their way in one world or another.” Carol Seajay, Books to Watch Out For
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2004
2 people are currently reading
280 people want to read
About the author
Nicola Griffith
50 books1,850 followersNicola Griffith has won the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Prize, the Society of Authors' ADCI Literary Prize, the Washington State Book Award (twice), the Nebula Award, the Otherwise/James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award, the World Fantasy Award, Premio Italia, Lambda Literary Award (6 times), and others. She is also the co-editor of the Bending the Landscape series of anthologies. Her newest novels are Hild and So Lucky. Her Aud Torvingen novels are soonn to be rereleased in new editions. She lives in Seattle with her wife, writer Kelley Eskridge, where she's working on the sequel to Hild, Menewood.
Series:
* Aud Torvingen
Series:
* Aud Torvingen
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 15, 2022
These stories were written in the early 90s, and I would certainly have been more enthusiastic had I first encountered them then, with their nicely sketched queer female protagonists. "Touching Fire" in particular centers around dance/movement-driven technology for digital music instruments. The ideas were certainly very innovative for their time, but I've spent my share of years following related technologies; I kept wishing that the technology had been written out of the story. I agree with some of the other reviewers that "Yaguara" is the best piece in the collection, dark and relatively open-ended, especially for its time.
December 2, 2013
I've loved Nicola Griffith's writing since her first, Nebula-award-winning book, Ammonite, and have read all of her novels up until her most recent, 'Hild' - which I'm on the waitlist for at the library. I can't say how very delighted I am at the amount of mainstream attention and success it looks like 'Hild' is getting - Griffith well-deserves it. But, while I'm waiting, I got this brief collection of 3 short stories.
Each of these stories fully deserves 5 stars. While each is a unique and very different work, they do share certain themes. In each a woman experiences desire/love, a need for human connection, loss, and the need to move on.
The first piece, 'Touching Fire,' is the only one I'd previously read. It's available for free from Griffith's web site:
nicolagriffith.com/fire.pdf
A bartender at a lesbian bar meets a fascinating and beautiful artist/dancer. She hints at an unlikely story, claiming to be an official 'National Treasure' who is guarded and controlled by the government. Is she crazy, truly exceptional, or both? The story perfectly captures the feeling of moth-to-a-flame love/desire.
'Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese' shows us a woman in a post-apocalyptic world. A plague of lassitude has near-killed-off humanity. In mourning for her dead wife, an immunologist despairs, living alone in her housing complex, accepting aid from the nearby survivors, but refusing to go about the business of living, until a crisis point is reached.
This story is available for free from Lightspeed Magazine, online:
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic...
The last piece is the Nebula-award nominated novella, 'Yaguara.' A photographer travels to Belize to document an anthropologist's work. Upon arrival, her neurotic insistence on self-isolation and her fears of having her privacy violated, are almost immediately eroded by the primitive, close-quartered living conditions she finds herself in. She grows strangely attracted to the woman scientist she's there to photograph, as her perception of reality seems to become less and less reliable, and the ancient documentation of evidence of a female-oriented jaguar cult may not be so ancient after all...
There's also an 'afterword' by the editor of Aqueduct press, L. Timmel DuChamp. Personally, I'd recommend skipping it. As far as my rating goes, I'm just pretending it doesn't exist, as it's not Griffith's fault. It's an excellent example of how people can see what they really want to in something, if they come to it with a pre-determined political agenda. I simply don't see Griffith's writing as being about the things that Duchamp does. Yes, Griffith's characters are lesbians, but the relationships and interconnections they have are absolutely universally human; the emotions [and emotions' interplay with the physical body] are the focus, to the point where gender is almost irrelevant. The stories are about human nature. This is writing for everyone, not just for women.
Each of these stories fully deserves 5 stars. While each is a unique and very different work, they do share certain themes. In each a woman experiences desire/love, a need for human connection, loss, and the need to move on.
The first piece, 'Touching Fire,' is the only one I'd previously read. It's available for free from Griffith's web site:
nicolagriffith.com/fire.pdf
A bartender at a lesbian bar meets a fascinating and beautiful artist/dancer. She hints at an unlikely story, claiming to be an official 'National Treasure' who is guarded and controlled by the government. Is she crazy, truly exceptional, or both? The story perfectly captures the feeling of moth-to-a-flame love/desire.
'Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese' shows us a woman in a post-apocalyptic world. A plague of lassitude has near-killed-off humanity. In mourning for her dead wife, an immunologist despairs, living alone in her housing complex, accepting aid from the nearby survivors, but refusing to go about the business of living, until a crisis point is reached.
This story is available for free from Lightspeed Magazine, online:
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic...
The last piece is the Nebula-award nominated novella, 'Yaguara.' A photographer travels to Belize to document an anthropologist's work. Upon arrival, her neurotic insistence on self-isolation and her fears of having her privacy violated, are almost immediately eroded by the primitive, close-quartered living conditions she finds herself in. She grows strangely attracted to the woman scientist she's there to photograph, as her perception of reality seems to become less and less reliable, and the ancient documentation of evidence of a female-oriented jaguar cult may not be so ancient after all...
There's also an 'afterword' by the editor of Aqueduct press, L. Timmel DuChamp. Personally, I'd recommend skipping it. As far as my rating goes, I'm just pretending it doesn't exist, as it's not Griffith's fault. It's an excellent example of how people can see what they really want to in something, if they come to it with a pre-determined political agenda. I simply don't see Griffith's writing as being about the things that Duchamp does. Yes, Griffith's characters are lesbians, but the relationships and interconnections they have are absolutely universally human; the emotions [and emotions' interplay with the physical body] are the focus, to the point where gender is almost irrelevant. The stories are about human nature. This is writing for everyone, not just for women.
August 8, 2011
As always I immersed myself in the lush, enticing prose with which Nicola
Griffith paints each story. These shorts were each unique and satisfying.
Few authors can captivate my senses in the same manner and I willingly yield.
"Yaguara" felt almost mythical.
Griffith paints each story. These shorts were each unique and satisfying.
Few authors can captivate my senses in the same manner and I willingly yield.
"Yaguara" felt almost mythical.
June 22, 2024
These three short stories are all as brilliant, sharp and gripping as I expected. Somehow Nicola Griffith manages to do one thing so well that it could as well be magic: She writes things that hit a random german woman in her late 20s like a brick because they are the exact composition of words she needed to read in that very moment. It already happened with Ammonite and now again with the second short story of this book: Song of bullfrogs, cry of geese.
It's about a woman living in a time on earth when a syndrome that resembles (or is) the chronic fatigue syndrome becomes deadly, contagious and takes over the world, driving humanity closer and closer to extinction. I know that Nicola Griffith has MS so her perspective on something like this is always so painfully on point. Despite my immense love for her work I couldn't yet bring myself to read "so lucky" (where the main character is diagnosed with MS) and this short story was almost too much to bear. I am not yet diagnosed with any cause, my life is just crumbling away under extreme fatigue, horrid stomach issues, brain fog and endless tiring pain. The newest addition to this nightmare being some conditions that require surgery after surgery. A simple cold can take me out for several weeks. Ironically, this short book took me extremely long to read because either my hands couldn't hold it anymore or I just blacked out from exhaustion. Doctors are moving way too slow while my body breaks down bit by bit because despite my coutries praised general health insurance system, not having a private insurance means doctors can't afford to give a fuck. This story made me cry for this reason and also many others. Grief for a partner, grief for humanity. For some this story might be a reminder to what we all lived through the past three years during the pandemic, even though Griffith in the 90s painted a kinder picture of humanity here than what I perceived of it during our pandemic. For me, this was mainly some kind of crude catharsis in seeing the entirety of humanity crumbling under what feels like such a lonely and personal struggle to me. There is some odd kind of peace in this story and a question I do not really dare to answer. Would it be easier for me to deal with my body/life breaking down when I would share this struggle with everyone in the world? When our pandemic hit and the first lockdowns happened I felt lonely and scared like the majority of humanity but I could adapt quicker than most because I knew what it meant to be careful, to avoid infection and to isolate myself. But now that the world around me is "normal" again it feels like everyone took a space ship to another planet while I'm still here where I was before, where I was during the pandemic and where I will stay for the rest of my life. On the other hand, sharing a struggle like this also means sharing it with loved ones. Losing them, seeing them in pain. I'd rather continue this struggle alone I think. But the thought and the question won't leave me alone.
"I imagined making my pain as impersonal as nature's night face, putting it in a pouch at the small of my back, zipping the pouch shut."
When I can, despite the fatigue and pain, I watch birds, dig through dirt in my parents garden or try a short hike through bogs or forests. Looking at life and rot and smell decay or woods. Everything is so unaware of my pain, my fear and the future. If you stop and watch there is so much going on. Things die and kill and rest and enjoy the sun just as much as I do. But nothing cares. I've talked to people who found the indifference of nature towards humans (and a hypothetical dying humanity) unnerving. I don't, quite the opposite. But I get what they mean.
I can not yet fully understand what it is like to grieve for another person like the protagonist grieves. Someday I will and maybe I will have the courage to let this story be my companion again. But until then I can't properly describe how much it means to me to read about so much love from one woman to her female partner. How it moves me and touches me in a way I didn't know I needed. There is also another kind of grief and how connection to other people (past, present and future. As individuals and as a species) is an important way to deal with it.
"I blinked. I'd been asleep: the moon was up" I read, as I had just picked the book up again after blinking and having been asleep.
This story felt deeply sad, encouraging in a not-so-gentle way and deeply soothing to me. Like someone holding me a little bit too tight while I cry in the ugliest way. It made me reflect on so much and it made me feel a lot I can't put it into words. There is so so much going on on these few pages (just a little over 20) and I can't yet express all of it. I left out a lot that probably should be said about this story. My heart and my head feel full and I could endlessly talk about what this story means to me. It hasn't exactly healed something but it has awoken some thoughts, ideas, perspectives and feelings I needed right now.
The book promised "feminist sci fi conversation pieces" and oh I would love to have a conversation about this one. And I would probably marry the woman who has that conversation with me.
And I haven't even talked about the other stories yet! Let's say they are wonderful, exceptionally well written and touched me in different ways (quite erotic sometimes too). I haven't found an author who writes same sex attracted women like she does: in a way that feels familiar, like home without getting too cozy to feel unreal.
I am also always surprised at how modern and relevant to the current Zeitgeist her earlier work (even pre-2000s) feels. Like she has some gift of foresight or just a very deep understanding of humans. Read these well over 20 year old stories and you will know what I mean.
I think this book confirms Nicola Griffith as my favourite author, even though I (luckily) have yet to read some of her other work (there is also a new book coming up as far as I know!). Maybe I will read "so lucky" when I finally get a diagnosis
It's about a woman living in a time on earth when a syndrome that resembles (or is) the chronic fatigue syndrome becomes deadly, contagious and takes over the world, driving humanity closer and closer to extinction. I know that Nicola Griffith has MS so her perspective on something like this is always so painfully on point. Despite my immense love for her work I couldn't yet bring myself to read "so lucky" (where the main character is diagnosed with MS) and this short story was almost too much to bear. I am not yet diagnosed with any cause, my life is just crumbling away under extreme fatigue, horrid stomach issues, brain fog and endless tiring pain. The newest addition to this nightmare being some conditions that require surgery after surgery. A simple cold can take me out for several weeks. Ironically, this short book took me extremely long to read because either my hands couldn't hold it anymore or I just blacked out from exhaustion. Doctors are moving way too slow while my body breaks down bit by bit because despite my coutries praised general health insurance system, not having a private insurance means doctors can't afford to give a fuck. This story made me cry for this reason and also many others. Grief for a partner, grief for humanity. For some this story might be a reminder to what we all lived through the past three years during the pandemic, even though Griffith in the 90s painted a kinder picture of humanity here than what I perceived of it during our pandemic. For me, this was mainly some kind of crude catharsis in seeing the entirety of humanity crumbling under what feels like such a lonely and personal struggle to me. There is some odd kind of peace in this story and a question I do not really dare to answer. Would it be easier for me to deal with my body/life breaking down when I would share this struggle with everyone in the world? When our pandemic hit and the first lockdowns happened I felt lonely and scared like the majority of humanity but I could adapt quicker than most because I knew what it meant to be careful, to avoid infection and to isolate myself. But now that the world around me is "normal" again it feels like everyone took a space ship to another planet while I'm still here where I was before, where I was during the pandemic and where I will stay for the rest of my life. On the other hand, sharing a struggle like this also means sharing it with loved ones. Losing them, seeing them in pain. I'd rather continue this struggle alone I think. But the thought and the question won't leave me alone.
"I imagined making my pain as impersonal as nature's night face, putting it in a pouch at the small of my back, zipping the pouch shut."
When I can, despite the fatigue and pain, I watch birds, dig through dirt in my parents garden or try a short hike through bogs or forests. Looking at life and rot and smell decay or woods. Everything is so unaware of my pain, my fear and the future. If you stop and watch there is so much going on. Things die and kill and rest and enjoy the sun just as much as I do. But nothing cares. I've talked to people who found the indifference of nature towards humans (and a hypothetical dying humanity) unnerving. I don't, quite the opposite. But I get what they mean.
I can not yet fully understand what it is like to grieve for another person like the protagonist grieves. Someday I will and maybe I will have the courage to let this story be my companion again. But until then I can't properly describe how much it means to me to read about so much love from one woman to her female partner. How it moves me and touches me in a way I didn't know I needed. There is also another kind of grief and how connection to other people (past, present and future. As individuals and as a species) is an important way to deal with it.
"I blinked. I'd been asleep: the moon was up" I read, as I had just picked the book up again after blinking and having been asleep.
This story felt deeply sad, encouraging in a not-so-gentle way and deeply soothing to me. Like someone holding me a little bit too tight while I cry in the ugliest way. It made me reflect on so much and it made me feel a lot I can't put it into words. There is so so much going on on these few pages (just a little over 20) and I can't yet express all of it. I left out a lot that probably should be said about this story. My heart and my head feel full and I could endlessly talk about what this story means to me. It hasn't exactly healed something but it has awoken some thoughts, ideas, perspectives and feelings I needed right now.
The book promised "feminist sci fi conversation pieces" and oh I would love to have a conversation about this one. And I would probably marry the woman who has that conversation with me.
And I haven't even talked about the other stories yet! Let's say they are wonderful, exceptionally well written and touched me in different ways (quite erotic sometimes too). I haven't found an author who writes same sex attracted women like she does: in a way that feels familiar, like home without getting too cozy to feel unreal.
I am also always surprised at how modern and relevant to the current Zeitgeist her earlier work (even pre-2000s) feels. Like she has some gift of foresight or just a very deep understanding of humans. Read these well over 20 year old stories and you will know what I mean.
I think this book confirms Nicola Griffith as my favourite author, even though I (luckily) have yet to read some of her other work (there is also a new book coming up as far as I know!). Maybe I will read "so lucky" when I finally get a diagnosis
August 7, 2025
3 short stories that I couldn't put down. I picked this up randomly at a library and it didn't disappoint. Each short story was written beautifully and built upon each other even without a shared storyline except one of loving women. So beautiful and well written.
July 17, 2018
Wonderful exotic stories
Read
September 25, 2024Good. Touching fire best
June 23, 2011
"Yaguara" is the best of the three stories collected, and I'm really glad it survived my education with race without becoming horrible. Or I think so, anyway -- the story is mostly about two white women (one archeologist, one photographer) exploring Mayan ruins, but the "mysterious" were-jaguar Mayans are actually taking calculated and successful steps to prevent their own "discovery" as anything unusual (i.e., they protect their own culture--and intellectual property--very adeptly), and the potential pitfalls in the "animal shapechanger" Mayans I think are dealt with very gracefully. It's also nicely complexifying that one of the white women is Anglo and the other is Latina and class/race tensions between become explicit.
Also, the sex scene is fantastically hot.
Also, the sex scene is fantastically hot.
July 15, 2010
I'm not one for short stories, but they are growing on me. Griffith's stories are particularly interesting as they are female oriented science fiction. There are virtually no men in these stories and the societies are notably different and remarkably similar despite the absence of the male gender. The final story, "Yaguara" even demonstrates a ritualized violence in a predominantly female society, a notion you don't get with most 'female utopia' stories. It's good, really good.
January 23, 2011
I have rarely been as fascinated as I was reading these three stories. Absolutely fantastic!
September 22, 2017
Just read touching fire and I had read Yaguara earlier. This writer's stories are unique...infact I expect the uniqueness when I pick up a book by her. Yaguara was an exotic read as I must say as her other stories. There is a sprinkle of what we know with what could be in a fantasy - thrill like kind of way.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews