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The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories
These Are The Unbridled Desires Of Women Without Men... When Their Same-Sex Passion Explodes, Will The Stables Ever Be Safe Again?
You've read about them, these sisters under the skin, vulnerable to the temptations of Sappho... Passion-starved twilight girls crossing over into a man's world of high withers, rippling hindquarters and glossy coats...
Meet women like Pauline in "Miss Barnard's Unit"--the country girl bereft of feminine influence who comes of age in World War I, and comes undone in the arms of a worldly debutante... Terry in "Snake Eyes for Silky, " a jockey from the school of hard knocks who falls hard for a whip-wielding gangster's moll, and finds that she must choose between her heart and her horse... Innocents like Lena and Lily in "The Chosen Horse, " who bond over the sad fate of a cart horse, and their unspoken need to tread the waters of Lesbos... A world-class jumper like Julie in "Lady Snow, " a champion tempted by the irresistible rhythms of the bisexual Euro-beat... A young girl like Oreola in "Pastures of Passion, " who follows a lost foal to a curious farm girl--and her own destiny...
These Are The Women Of The Big Book Of Lesbian Horse Stories. The Paddock Gates Are Open--Come Inside And Join The Fun!
With an inspired sense of nostalgia, sensation, and wry humor, Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan invite readers back into the curves of third-sex pulp fiction where odd-girls-out now ride as free as a filly with their Bohemian desires--side-saddle be damned. But this time, from coy flirtation to requited lust, there's nary a man in sight to set them on the straight-and-narrow.
You've read about them, these sisters under the skin, vulnerable to the temptations of Sappho... Passion-starved twilight girls crossing over into a man's world of high withers, rippling hindquarters and glossy coats...
Meet women like Pauline in "Miss Barnard's Unit"--the country girl bereft of feminine influence who comes of age in World War I, and comes undone in the arms of a worldly debutante... Terry in "Snake Eyes for Silky, " a jockey from the school of hard knocks who falls hard for a whip-wielding gangster's moll, and finds that she must choose between her heart and her horse... Innocents like Lena and Lily in "The Chosen Horse, " who bond over the sad fate of a cart horse, and their unspoken need to tread the waters of Lesbos... A world-class jumper like Julie in "Lady Snow, " a champion tempted by the irresistible rhythms of the bisexual Euro-beat... A young girl like Oreola in "Pastures of Passion, " who follows a lost foal to a curious farm girl--and her own destiny...
These Are The Women Of The Big Book Of Lesbian Horse Stories. The Paddock Gates Are Open--Come Inside And Join The Fun!
With an inspired sense of nostalgia, sensation, and wry humor, Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan invite readers back into the curves of third-sex pulp fiction where odd-girls-out now ride as free as a filly with their Bohemian desires--side-saddle be damned. But this time, from coy flirtation to requited lust, there's nary a man in sight to set them on the straight-and-narrow.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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428 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
April 15, 2018
The Big Book Of Lesbian Horse Stories gives you exactly what it promises, a whole bunch of stories about girls and the undying devotion for their horse. It’s campy fun, often overly dramatic and rife with a multitude of cheesy horse puns. I think Hershel the wonder horse who could read the Talmud was the absolute star of this anthology.
f/f
Themes: 50ies pulp inspired fun, horses and the girls who love them, don’t we all go through a horsie phase in our teens? I did! After reading the big book of lesbian horse stories I am totally done with the subject for a long time.
3.6 stars
f/f
Themes: 50ies pulp inspired fun, horses and the girls who love them, don’t we all go through a horsie phase in our teens? I did! After reading the big book of lesbian horse stories I am totally done with the subject for a long time.
3.6 stars
July 23, 2011
This is a parody of every lesbian pulp-fiction plot ever written. There is no lack of freckled farm girls, gangster molls or saddled-policewomen, and the collection of short stories perfectly captures the flavour of the fifties dime novel.
This collection is not to be taken seriously. Every girl has a name like Oreola or Jean and every story includes a horse, sometimes under the most unlikely circumstances. The plots are emotionally-charged and repetitive, usually involving a protagonist who must overcome her troubled past and take control of her life to get the girl and finally ride off into the sunset.
The novel’s provocative cover is slightly misleading - in no way are the collective efforts of Surkis and Nolan titillating, but readers will get just what the title promises: a big book of lesbian horse stories.
Was this an excellent piece of literature? Neigh! But was it entertaining? Oh yes.
This collection is not to be taken seriously. Every girl has a name like Oreola or Jean and every story includes a horse, sometimes under the most unlikely circumstances. The plots are emotionally-charged and repetitive, usually involving a protagonist who must overcome her troubled past and take control of her life to get the girl and finally ride off into the sunset.
The novel’s provocative cover is slightly misleading - in no way are the collective efforts of Surkis and Nolan titillating, but readers will get just what the title promises: a big book of lesbian horse stories.
Was this an excellent piece of literature? Neigh! But was it entertaining? Oh yes.
July 5, 2009
Oh, the awesome evilness. Very entertaining send up of the "girl and her horse" type of books, complete with some pokes at certain tropes of lesbian romance. I'm still giggling over several of them.
December 1, 2009
This book must have been *so* much fun for these two women to write! Each story adds a modern twist to one of the stock settings of lesbian pulp fiction, while somehow also managing to work a horse into the story. The last one alone is worth the price of admission; in it, an unhappy farmer's wife who has set out to save a group of wild stallions from the menfolk stumbles onto a commune of refugees from the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. There, she is introduced to all manner of lesbian delights, including tofu.
March 28, 2017
Tongue in cheek, melodramatic and funny modern take on 50s pulp fiction.
My favourite line would have to be, "Oreola flung her arms around her friend. "Ana Maria, how could I have thought that devoting my life to the class struggle would satisfy me when all I ever really wanted was a career in pictures?"
My favourite line would have to be, "Oreola flung her arms around her friend. "Ana Maria, how could I have thought that devoting my life to the class struggle would satisfy me when all I ever really wanted was a career in pictures?"
July 29, 2013
lesbians and horses, but no lesbian horses; a disappointment.
July 12, 2022
All of the stories in this book are tasteful. Some were terrific, others were boring, but they all had class and style.
March 14, 2019
I picked up a copy of The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories by Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan based on the merits of Nolan alone. I was introduced to her Lesbian Career Girl series by a friend on Goodreads, and each one was wonderful (though I’m partial to Dolly Dingle, Lesbian Landlandy myself). I wasn’t sure in what way Nolan and Surkis collaborated, but some stories were reminiscent of the Lesbian Career Girl books while others were totally different, so I have my suspicions.
On several occasions I have explained that this collection of short stories is not about lesbian horses, but lesbians who love horses. The amount of lesbian-to-horse interaction varies by story, and I noticed the stories in which horses were not as prominent were the ones I didn’t enjoy as much. The stories really shine when their setting is a ranch, a race track, or horse stables.
In “The Stableboy,” a naive teen asks the boy who tends the stable where her horse is boarded to the dance — only to be surprised by what he’s hiding. “Lady Snow” is a story in which the reigning queen of horse racing sabotages her opponents with drugs and sex. “Ride to Freedom” takes a dissatisfied housewife away from her husband to a camp where women nurture and support each other in a feminist utopia.
Though set in different locations and decades, most stories have a 1950s vibe, explaining why men the very few men in the whole book are domineering and sexist. Nolan and Surkis frequently re-imagine spaces in which men typically exist, but are written out in The Big Book. Personally, I find that fascinating to read and always feel different during my reading experience. Thoughts of sexual assault and leering eyes leave my head while I’m reading because the people who do those things aren’t on the page.
Typically, the Lesbian Career Girls novels have a mystery at the heart of the plot. Without something clearly driving each story in The Big Book, I lost interest more often than not. The first two stories especially did not impress me, and I was worried. And then, I read a paragraph that is classic Monica Nolan. It’s totally innocent, but also *ahem* not:
"Gingerly, Pauline offered Emma [the horse] the sugar cube, her hand held out flat, palm up, as Flora had shown her. She felt Emma’s gentle, hairy lips moving over her hand, and she closed her eyes, to better savor the indescribable sensation."
Such passages are the kind that make squeal over how an author is getting away with something, but also, I find it funny in its brazen wording. Though there are fun kernels throughout, all the innuendos couldn’t keep me interested in the collection as a whole.
The stories are often silly and over the top. What worked in the Lesbian Career Girl novels fell flat in these short stories — and it may be the form that stifled the whole concept. In many cases, the stories were wrapped up quickly, making them read like incomplete ideas for stories.
Only one moment sent off warning bells in my head. When the reigning queen in “Lady Snow” confronts the rider she is trying to sabotage, the rider’s friend yells:
"She doesn’t need you — you, your blow, or your bag of bisexual tricks!"
Woof. In case you didn’t know, bisexual people are often ostracized by the rest of the lesbian and gay community. The authors are lesbians, and the character who says “bag of bisexual tricks” is also a lesbian. I’m forced to wonder if the authors see bisexual men and women as deceitful, or if they were trying to make a character whom readers are supposed to like look ignorant. I wasn’t sure, but it bothered me.
The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories falls flat, but if you enjoy fun, rompy, pulpy books, then I highly recommend the Lesbian Career Girl novels. Be sure to read them in order.
On several occasions I have explained that this collection of short stories is not about lesbian horses, but lesbians who love horses. The amount of lesbian-to-horse interaction varies by story, and I noticed the stories in which horses were not as prominent were the ones I didn’t enjoy as much. The stories really shine when their setting is a ranch, a race track, or horse stables.
In “The Stableboy,” a naive teen asks the boy who tends the stable where her horse is boarded to the dance — only to be surprised by what he’s hiding. “Lady Snow” is a story in which the reigning queen of horse racing sabotages her opponents with drugs and sex. “Ride to Freedom” takes a dissatisfied housewife away from her husband to a camp where women nurture and support each other in a feminist utopia.
Though set in different locations and decades, most stories have a 1950s vibe, explaining why men the very few men in the whole book are domineering and sexist. Nolan and Surkis frequently re-imagine spaces in which men typically exist, but are written out in The Big Book. Personally, I find that fascinating to read and always feel different during my reading experience. Thoughts of sexual assault and leering eyes leave my head while I’m reading because the people who do those things aren’t on the page.
Typically, the Lesbian Career Girls novels have a mystery at the heart of the plot. Without something clearly driving each story in The Big Book, I lost interest more often than not. The first two stories especially did not impress me, and I was worried. And then, I read a paragraph that is classic Monica Nolan. It’s totally innocent, but also *ahem* not:
"Gingerly, Pauline offered Emma [the horse] the sugar cube, her hand held out flat, palm up, as Flora had shown her. She felt Emma’s gentle, hairy lips moving over her hand, and she closed her eyes, to better savor the indescribable sensation."
Such passages are the kind that make squeal over how an author is getting away with something, but also, I find it funny in its brazen wording. Though there are fun kernels throughout, all the innuendos couldn’t keep me interested in the collection as a whole.
The stories are often silly and over the top. What worked in the Lesbian Career Girl novels fell flat in these short stories — and it may be the form that stifled the whole concept. In many cases, the stories were wrapped up quickly, making them read like incomplete ideas for stories.
Only one moment sent off warning bells in my head. When the reigning queen in “Lady Snow” confronts the rider she is trying to sabotage, the rider’s friend yells:
"She doesn’t need you — you, your blow, or your bag of bisexual tricks!"
Woof. In case you didn’t know, bisexual people are often ostracized by the rest of the lesbian and gay community. The authors are lesbians, and the character who says “bag of bisexual tricks” is also a lesbian. I’m forced to wonder if the authors see bisexual men and women as deceitful, or if they were trying to make a character whom readers are supposed to like look ignorant. I wasn’t sure, but it bothered me.
The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories falls flat, but if you enjoy fun, rompy, pulpy books, then I highly recommend the Lesbian Career Girl novels. Be sure to read them in order.
Read
May 14, 2021they gave a horse cocaine
January 31, 2010
Oh so ridiculous - this book just seems to take it all to new depths - I think I might prefer it to Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary, partially because I've become more familiar with a) lesbian literature and b) trashy pulp in the intervening time, so I know what this book is parodying.
Here are some particularly noteworthy lines:
"'Thank you Jean, and please try to understand - Midge's problem is over-identification with her father, which compelled her to embrace a patriarchal power system'"
"Uncle Roger gave her a quick history of cross-dressing from the Ancients through to Shakespeare and the modern age, and concluded 'I think, Peg, that Pat really does care for you. She took you to the dance because she thought it would make YOU happy.'"
Then there's the whole absurd communist exchange, the moralising about drugs. Each story has its own ridiculous way of including both horses and lesbians, which got a bit tiresome as you realised just how deep into the bottom of the barrel they'd scraped. But it also made it more interesting than Lois, because it didn't have that feeling that the writer was trying to drag out one character's blind naivete for 200 pages. Short stories are better in that way - annoying characters and annoying writing doesn't hang around too long.
Like I said, it was fun. I wonder if any lesbians or horse lovers would actually like it though. I think it's only for ironic indie kids and perpetual teenage boys. I guess I'm both.
Here are some particularly noteworthy lines:
"'Thank you Jean, and please try to understand - Midge's problem is over-identification with her father, which compelled her to embrace a patriarchal power system'"
"Uncle Roger gave her a quick history of cross-dressing from the Ancients through to Shakespeare and the modern age, and concluded 'I think, Peg, that Pat really does care for you. She took you to the dance because she thought it would make YOU happy.'"
Then there's the whole absurd communist exchange, the moralising about drugs. Each story has its own ridiculous way of including both horses and lesbians, which got a bit tiresome as you realised just how deep into the bottom of the barrel they'd scraped. But it also made it more interesting than Lois, because it didn't have that feeling that the writer was trying to drag out one character's blind naivete for 200 pages. Short stories are better in that way - annoying characters and annoying writing doesn't hang around too long.
Like I said, it was fun. I wonder if any lesbians or horse lovers would actually like it though. I think it's only for ironic indie kids and perpetual teenage boys. I guess I'm both.
April 30, 2007
A collection of stories about lesbians who love lesbians who love horses.
will-never-read
June 16, 2009I would read this if it were by Pat Buchanan.
June 22, 2020
This book has everything: snappy dialogue, drug addicted horses, Oklahoma dust storms and death by hummus. Truly a wild ride.
May 8, 2020
This book is hilarious! It's a send-up of lesbian pulp paperbacks of, I guess, the 1950s. The places and eras are different in each story. The first story is the most like the pulp books: ayoung woman is disgraced in her midwest hometown when she's discovered with another girl, runs to Greenwich Village and falls in with a hip group of lesbians, drag queens, the whole scene. And runs into a horse that reminds her of her horse that was killed when she was discovered. But it's not the '50s, it's the '60s - the story has references to Warhol, an culminates with the Stonewall riots. All written in the naive voice of those pulps.
The next story is about British girls in the Great War (I honestly couldn't tell which war, but I'm thinking WWI). Our heroine, Pauline, thinks “Yes, I can be useful, woman though I am! Even because of the kind of woman I am—a woman not like other women. But how not like other women—what kind of woman am I? Will I meet other women like me, who can tell me what kind of woman I am? Or will it be a woman unlike myself, who will show me what kind of woman I can be?” So totally over the top! (The author doesn't go that route in the book again, not exactly, but each main character has some kind of wildly naive ideas, each in her own way.)
The other stories cover a horsey girl in modern-ish Middle America; a Depression-era Okie girl who is smitten with a Hispanic girl (with a horse) while her family is migrating to California; a rare female jockey in the gangster era, who is required to throw the races for the gangster bosses; a Jewish girl in 1910-ish New York City (there's a very smart horse who is teaching her the Talmud); a young jockey in apparently the '70s or '80s in a situation like "Reefer Madness," where drugs are immediately addicting and cause depravity; and a young horse-loving housewife who stumbles into a lesbian separatist commune with wild mustangs.
The book is trashy as anything, totally over-the-top - and it perfectly suited my mood.
The next story is about British girls in the Great War (I honestly couldn't tell which war, but I'm thinking WWI). Our heroine, Pauline, thinks “Yes, I can be useful, woman though I am! Even because of the kind of woman I am—a woman not like other women. But how not like other women—what kind of woman am I? Will I meet other women like me, who can tell me what kind of woman I am? Or will it be a woman unlike myself, who will show me what kind of woman I can be?” So totally over the top! (The author doesn't go that route in the book again, not exactly, but each main character has some kind of wildly naive ideas, each in her own way.)
The other stories cover a horsey girl in modern-ish Middle America; a Depression-era Okie girl who is smitten with a Hispanic girl (with a horse) while her family is migrating to California; a rare female jockey in the gangster era, who is required to throw the races for the gangster bosses; a Jewish girl in 1910-ish New York City (there's a very smart horse who is teaching her the Talmud); a young jockey in apparently the '70s or '80s in a situation like "Reefer Madness," where drugs are immediately addicting and cause depravity; and a young horse-loving housewife who stumbles into a lesbian separatist commune with wild mustangs.
The book is trashy as anything, totally over-the-top - and it perfectly suited my mood.
December 27, 2024
This book walks an exceedingly thin line between satirizing and offending. It’s absolutely ludicrous in every way. I’ve been told it references many sapphic entertainment classics as well as drawing inspo from historical lives of queer women but I’d be lying if I said they were exceedingly obvious to me. If I were more of a queer scholar perhaps I would enjoy this book more.
My favorite story by far was “The Stableboy.” Sorry to LaLa for the low rating.
My favorite story by far was “The Stableboy.” Sorry to LaLa for the low rating.
April 19, 2019
I don't know what I was expecting. Something more... Camp, I guess.
But the variations in time and social-economic factors - and politics, religions and race - was well paced.
There could have been more horses.
But the variations in time and social-economic factors - and politics, religions and race - was well paced.
There could have been more horses.
March 5, 2022
If you keep in mind the entire time you are reading this it is a satire of the old 70s dime novels it is fun. Even keeping this in mind couldn't stop a large volume of eye rolls per page for me though. Maybe this was just too over the top for me. I ended up skimming two stories.
October 7, 2025
"How could I have thought that devoting my life to the class struggle would satisfy me when all I ever really wanted was a career in pictures?”
Once you figure out this is 100% satire, it's camp as hell (obligatory "what if we kissed by the feminist tofu bucket 👉👈🥺")
Once you figure out this is 100% satire, it's camp as hell (obligatory "what if we kissed by the feminist tofu bucket 👉👈🥺")
June 24, 2022
I really liked how this book can be funny and also talk about serious topics like the complicated relationship between the queer community and the police, sexism towards woman ect.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2024
It's fine, I only really liked the butch stablehand story and the warzone one.
April 2, 2025
pulpy, but as short stories I don't know if that really works for me
as a Horse Girl (tm) I was hoping to enjoy this more than I did
as a Horse Girl (tm) I was hoping to enjoy this more than I did
January 22, 2008
Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan, The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (Kensington, 2003)
Okay, so lesbians and horses, and a cover straight off a fifties dime novel. How can you possibly go wrong? Let me count the ways, you wretched thing.
I can't, and probably don't want to, count the number of said dime novels I've read, nor the time I've wasted on them. Some achieve a kind of unintentional, campy humor, and the blurb on the back promises that this is the angle Surkis and Nolan took with The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories. Really, I had high hopes. But instead of humor brought on by the lunkheaded and unthinking actions of the protagonists, what emerged from this book was relentless, unending political diatribe. Somehow I knew when I got to the words "oppressed by the Patriarchy" I wasn't going to be going anywhere with this. When two Depression-era teens get into debates about the various faults of marxism and capitalism, it got worse. Stories will occasionally stop for a quick direct-to-reader chat about the evils of (fill in the blank, all the usual suspects are here).
So I guess it makes sense for me, since I would seem to be a member of the Patriarchy thanks to possession of outdoor plumbing, to oppress this book. But, I hold no position of power, so unfortunately for the authors (since, after all, oppression is the quickest route to the bestseller lists these days), the worst I can do is give it an awful review, one which it quite richly deserves. Like the pseudo-fiction of other writers who care about nothing but making a point, the material herein is okay if you feel like reading endless political dialectic. But that doesn't make it art. * ½
Okay, so lesbians and horses, and a cover straight off a fifties dime novel. How can you possibly go wrong? Let me count the ways, you wretched thing.
I can't, and probably don't want to, count the number of said dime novels I've read, nor the time I've wasted on them. Some achieve a kind of unintentional, campy humor, and the blurb on the back promises that this is the angle Surkis and Nolan took with The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories. Really, I had high hopes. But instead of humor brought on by the lunkheaded and unthinking actions of the protagonists, what emerged from this book was relentless, unending political diatribe. Somehow I knew when I got to the words "oppressed by the Patriarchy" I wasn't going to be going anywhere with this. When two Depression-era teens get into debates about the various faults of marxism and capitalism, it got worse. Stories will occasionally stop for a quick direct-to-reader chat about the evils of (fill in the blank, all the usual suspects are here).
So I guess it makes sense for me, since I would seem to be a member of the Patriarchy thanks to possession of outdoor plumbing, to oppress this book. But, I hold no position of power, so unfortunately for the authors (since, after all, oppression is the quickest route to the bestseller lists these days), the worst I can do is give it an awful review, one which it quite richly deserves. Like the pseudo-fiction of other writers who care about nothing but making a point, the material herein is okay if you feel like reading endless political dialectic. But that doesn't make it art. * ½
November 27, 2009
Sample: A cab pulled up and Tilly leaped out. "Oh Midge," she mourned. "I was afraid of something like this." Turning to Jean, she said, "Thank you Jean, and try to understand. Midge's problem is overidentification with her father, which compelled her to embrace a patriarchal power system, while her own desires placed her squarely in opposition to that very system. She does the best she can."
no-way-in-hell
September 10, 2016
December 24, 2013
I was a fun read.
Want to read
June 7, 2018WHat, the big book of WHAT? Haha oh my God this made my day
(Why 'big' though? it has 240 pages...)
(Why 'big' though? it has 240 pages...)
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews