Book Review Section **
Wagon Tongue, North Dakota--
by Winston Garmouth
Tessie Willden is a lonely 18-year old New
Yorker sent to live with a family friend in a
small town in North Dakota while her father
travels the continent and her mother runs
the company auto repair business.
Ostracized as an outsider, Tessie struggles
to fit in with her new surroundings--she also
struggles to fit in her new jeans, as she had
gained weight.
When Tessie befriends Lisette, a beautiful,
self-admitted lesbian ghost who had haunted
the town's cemetery since her mysterious
death 155 years earlier, Tessie is drawn into
an eerie story of betrayal, loss, old curses
and family secrets.
One evening ghosty Lisette, without warn-
ing, gives Tessie a quick slap on her ass by
flipping a towel-- this was as Mardi Gras ap-
proached and after Lisette had also slyly ap-
proached the innocent Tessie after Tessie
has stepped out of the shower.
This ass-slap leads to a culmination.
Something dark and angry has been brewing
for decades-- and also a light and refreshing
beer brewed inside the brewery on Hydraulic
Street.
This moody tale thoroughly embraces the
rich history, occult lore and complex issues
of girls kissing girls, ethnicity, class and cul-
ture that has defined small North Dakota
towns since pioneer settlement.
Rather than shy away from lesbian practices,
the author of this novel uses lesbian practices
to capture the essence of lesbianism--as prac-
ticed by lesbians from (in) Mardi Gras rituals
to voodoo spells, from lots of lip work during
Hurricane Katrina to under-the-table tend-
er hair-gropes in Jamacian Jazz bars and in
Peruvian cafes during July's mosquito infes-
tation.
This is a story that could only be written.
**
Ms Floradador Coaltrain,
New York Times Book Review
##
p
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Oh, you possess the most delectable sense of humour in all of the Americas, Palinurus. (unlike you, I spell your name correctly).
ReplyDeleteTell me, were those Sapphic interludes rendered
with sufficient oyster drizzle? periwinkle
pouts? sea urchin twitches?
V writes,
ReplyDeleteTell me, were those Sapphic interludes rendered
with sufficient oyster drizzle? periwinkle
pouts? sea urchin twitches?
At this time I wish not to nip my brief
career in the bud, here at the Gaslight
Hotel, by quessing which parts of the fe-
male undercarriage matches the metaphors
listed here-- that is, unless I am given
guarantee these parts will be held against
me and offered as drink, or both.
A voice-- "Palinurus, go ahead.
You have our guarantee."
Well, sufficient lesbian oyster drizzle is
a work-up of moisture inside the periwinkle
pout, which is the entire mechanism that so
attracts women and men alike. The PP (peri-
winkle pout) is also the protector of the
sea urchin by giving it a hood.
The sea urchin signals it has bolted from
this protection by twiching.
While lesbians know and appreciate all this early on in their growing up, it takes most
men until their early forties to put away
mother-induced lectures on what is appropri-
iate and sanitary enough to put in the mouth.
In this lesbians are a few centuries ahead.
I myself have tried to catch up.
##
p
No fair!
ReplyDeleteDamn it!
I was set to order a copy to indulge my sapphic erotica fantasies, to learn of an elusive tantric element, if, in fact, one has escaped me.
On the island of Sapphos, there are no bearded women with flannel shirts. Not in my version.
o
ReplyDeletemy
god
(phrase borrowed from my daughter)
is there any limit to your storytelling?