Sweet Creek

by Lee Lynch

Sweet Creek is a story of love, community, and the changing tides of time set in a town where trannies, lesbian cops, aging gay hippies, womyn's landers, and rural couples come in search of a lesbian paradise. Two leftover lesbian hippies, now in their 50s, Donny and Chick run the vegetarian Natural Woman Foods store. In Donny, a black lesbian, and Chick, her lover, Lee Lynch continues to depict the struggles of working class butch lesbians and femmes.

Author Lee Lynch tackles broad themes that affect us love, death, gender, and aging in a novel rich with love, friendship, passion, and romance.

Genres: Lesbian, Lesbian Fiction, Fiction, LGBT

358 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Lee Lynch published her first lesbian fiction in “The Ladder” in the 1960s. Naiad Press issued Toothpick House, Old Dyke Tales, and more. Her novel The Swashbuckler was presented in NYC as a play scripted by Sarah Schulman. New Victoria Publishers brought out Rafferty Street, the last book of Lynch’s Morton River Valley Trilogy. Her backlist is becoming available in electronic format from Bold Strokes Books. Her newest novels are Beggar of Love and The Raid from Bold Strokes. Her recent short stories can be found in Romantic Interludes (Bold Strokes Books), Women In Uniform (Regal Crest) and at www.readtheselips.com. Her reviews and feature articles have appeared in such publications as “The San Francisco Chronicle,” “The Advocate” and “The Lambda Book Report.” Lynch’s syndicated column, “The Amazon Trail,” runs in venues such as boldstrokesbooks.com, justaboutwrite.com, “Letters From Camp Rehoboth,” and “On Top Magazine.”

Lee Lynch was honored by the Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS) as the first recipient (for The Swashbuckler) and namesake of The Lee Lynch Classics Award, which will honor outstanding works in Lesbian Fiction published before awards and honors were given. She also is a recipient of the Alice B. Reader Award for Lesbian Fiction, the James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award, which honors LGBT mid-career novelists of extraordinary talent and service to the LGBT community, and was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame. In 2010 Beggar of Love received the GCLS Ann Bannon Readers’ Choice Award and the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Bronze Award in Gay/Lesbian Fiction. She has twice been nominated for Lambda Literary Awards and her novel Sweet Creek (Bold Strokes Books) was a GCLS award finalist.

She lives in rural Florida with her wife.

Reviews

[Elaine Burnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blurb: Sweet Creek is a story of love, community, and the changing tides of time set in a town where trannies, lesbian cops, aging gay hippies, womyn's landers and rural couples come in search of a lesbian paradise. Two left over lesbian hippies, now in their 50s, Donny and Chick run the vegetarian Natural Woman Foods store. In Donny, a black lesbian and Chick, her lover, Lee Lynch continues to depict the struggles of working class butch lesbians and femmes.

The first thing that surprised me was how good this was. Not because I didn't expect that from Lynch, but that I didn't expect it from Bold Strokes Books. It doesn't seem to fit their genre (not Romance). I could see this published by a mainstream press (their loss). All that said, as with many mainstream books that are perfectly good and fine, this one missed just a bit for me. Maybe it was the ensemble cast--I found it hard to pick any one person to root for. Donny and Chick are hardly the main portion of the story. It is set in the early 2000s, but felt more like the '80s or '90s. Some things didn't feel real, like having to be closeted in this town full of out dykes and much of the conflict (why the closet was necessary, what the bigotry consisted of) was more told than shown. She also leaps the story forward by days or weeks, then goes back to fill in. So I felt a bit disconnected. But the one character I really wanted to know better had no POV of her own and little of her story told. Till the end. Wow. Reminiscent of Atonement, but much more satisfying, that last bit, right down to the last line, blew me away. I'd have liked more of that in the rest.

[Roni · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a small town in the Northwest which has all varieties of characters in it, living ruggedly in a back-to-the-land lifestyle. Lesbian lead characters of many types - hippies, goddess worshipers, artists, restaurateurs. Life themes of struggle, change, aging, death and gender.

[Hil · Rating 5 out of 5]

not, horrifyingly transphobic in that you think she actually DESPISES trans women, just insensitive as all get out. “Has not aged well” seems fair.