Love and Death, and Other Disasters by Jenifer Levin

Jenifer Levin's first collection of short stories, this volume represents work written over the past 20 years--some of it never before published. Intimate, raw, erotically charged, sometimes comic and deeply disturbing, always passionate, these stories center on lesbian relationships with lovers, children, family.

Jenifer Levin has received acclaim for her novels, particularly Water Dancer and The Sea of Light. This collection of short stories, her first, covers her writing from 1977 to 1995 and treats us to a fine sampling of her talent and imagination. In an introduction, Levin notes that many of these pieces could not be published when they were written because explicitly sexual and butch/fem themes were not considered 'appropriate' for lesbian writing. Levin has lasted longer than her critics, and this Love and Death & Other Disasters is as fine and compelling a collection of fiction--lesbian, gay, or straight--as you will find anywhere today.

'It just goes to show you: If you live long enough, you come back into fashion.' Most of these stories incorporate the complexities of relationships, more specifically butch-femme lesbian relationships. 'After the Bath' is a tale of seduction: a woman picks up another woman in a bar and is thrilled to be offered a luxurious bubble bath. 'La Bruja' is the object of Addy's affections, but circumstances keep them apart until Addy visits the dying woman in the hospital and then whisks her away for a night at the Waldorf Astoria. In 'The Butterfly,' a woman brings her girlfriend home to her family and contends with her apparently unstable brother. In the title story, Callie lives with Pat but still feels tied to her ex-girlfriend Lu, with whom she shares a child and who was diagnosed with cancer shortly after their break-up. Rewrites of the Pied Piper (in 'The Piper,' a woman whose 'pipe' is a sexual accoutrement falls in love with the daughter of Hamlin's mayor) and an Inuit myth ('Takankapsaluk') are less successful, often verging on silly. Levin has an engaging voice.