In Isolation: A Short Book of Long Monologues by Rachel Dax
This is a collection of four stories about women in their 80s reflecting on their lives. Each story has a queer theme to it - lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender in that order, which I now realize matches up with LGBT!
Genres
Queer, historical fiction
Description
In Isolation is a book of monologues recounting the life stories of four British octogenarian women from very different backgrounds. Each monologue explores LGBT experiences, as well as women’s relationships to men and wider society.
Frank and unflinching, In Isolation discusses love, sex, sexuality and gender in a way that both challenges and affirms.
Review
I really liked these stories. They were short and bittersweet and they conveyed their emotion well in such a short time. I especially loved the second story, about the woman’s bond with her gay husband, and how sweet and close their relationship is after becoming a platonic friendship. It really shows the value of platonic relationships.
My second favorite was probably the fourth story, which was very sad but has an empowering ending where the woman is able to help her trans granddaughter.
Queerness in these time periods is usually not mentioned or explored, since queer people had to hide away. Because of this, I really liked that this book chose that time period as a theme, to show how queer people might have existed and led their lives.
I’m very glad I decided to download this collection.