The novel is told out of order, in small vignettes that traces these lives over and again we move through time and across borders to paint a picture of change and growth and love. These are women who didn’t conform to gender roles and expectations, who loved other women, who spoke out and inspired the women and queer people around them.
All of them were inspired by Sappho, and in turn inspired one another to move, act, shake the world, and turn the status quo on its head. Some you will be familiar with others you won’t. The women here were all real: artists, writers, actors, philosophers, and travellers. We begin in Italy before tracing multiple threads across France, England, Ireland, and across to the US. This is one of the most kind, hopeful, and inspiring lesbian novels you could ever hope to read and enjoy. Watch our full video review of Our Wives Under the Seaīuy a copy here! After Sappho by Selby Wynn SchwartzĪfter Sapphois the novelisation of a web of interconnected lives: queer women from around the turn of the 20th Century who pushed feminism and queer experiences into the limelight.
It’s a tale of love and loss and loneliness and isolation. This is a lesbian novel that forces the reader to confront the idea of grief and how it might present itself. Miri is grieving the loss of her wife, confronted with the fact that whatever has returned is not Leah. A new Leah who barely speaks and behaves in strange and frightening ways. Miri’s chapters follow her as she tries to live with, and fails to care for, the returned and broken Leah. Leah’s chapters blend the Lovecraftian with the Kafkaesque as we sink slowly with her, and we see what’s down there beneath everything. What should have been weeks turned to months, and when Leah eventually returned, she was different. Miri’s wife Leah set out on an expedition to the bottom of the sea in a cramped submarine. Our Wives Under the Seais a gothic tale told from two perspectives and one that explores the concepts of loss and grief from a frighteningly original angle.
When she followed that with a staggering work of modern gothic fiction in Our Wives Under the Sea it quickly became clear how special her writing really is. Julia Armfield made an enormous splash with her debut short story collection, Salt Slow. These are essential lesbian novels by some of the best women writers of today. What unites them all is their sheer quality. Some are in translation from other languages others are forging new paths for well-trodden genres. Some of these lesbian novels are dark and twisted others are celebrations of queer love in the face of patriarchy.
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