Lilac Mines A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Cheryl Klein Bernadette Dunne Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Lilac Mines A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Cheryl Klein Bernadette Dunne Audible Studios Books
Felix Ketay, a 25-year-old Los Angeles dyke, has her foundations shaken when she's ditched by her pomosexual girlfriend and then gay-bashed on the streets of West Hollywood.
Felix's old-school lesbian aunt, Anna Lisa Hill, ran away from home in 1965 at age 19 and ended up in Lilac Mines, a small town in California's Sierra Nevada foothills with a small but tight-knit butch/femme community.
When Felix joins her aunt in Lilac Mines hoping to discover a place of respite, Anna Lisa proves stand-offish, so Felix devotes herself to investigating the town's 100-year-old mystery the disappearance of 16-year-old Lilac Ambrose in the mine shafts that run beneath the mountain.
Felix learns that finding an authentic history is never easy, but Lilac Mines - with its abandoned mines, unknowable secrets, and the occasional quirky-cute thrift store employee - might not be such a bad place to try.
About the author Cheryl Klein is a shameless Angeleno, quiet pescatarian, and shameful tabloid reader. She lives in Los Angeles where she is West Coast director of Poets & Writers, Inc.
Lilac Mines A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Cheryl Klein Bernadette Dunne Audible Studios Books
Lilac Mines is a dense story to read. It's not that 352 pages are that long, but the material requires concentration and assimilation of a number of details.Felix Ketay isn't prepared for the changes that occur in her life. First, her girlfriend runs off to Europe with a female punk rocker and Felix can't stop obsessing over that. Then her friends try to distract her by taking her for a night out at a lesbian bar and she becomes the victim of a vicious gay bashing. She doesn't feel safe at home, she doesn't feel safe going to work and her parents are driving her crazy. When her mother suggests she spend some time with her seldom seen Aunt Anna Lisa in a backwater town called Lilac Mines, Felix agrees more with dread than an eagerness to visit a relative.
Lilac Mines is an unusual town. It takes its name from the mysterious disappearance of a young girl in a nearby mine and the name may explain why the town is a magnet for lesbians in two different time periods. Anna Lisa has seen one period pass and the next one arrive in the form of her niece and if she's learned anything, it's to keep a low profile. Felix comes into a town that is haunted by the mystery and in denial of what is going on right in front of it. As she tries to solve what happened to Lilac Ambrose and unravel the truth about her aunt, she finds that she learns even more about herself.
Klein sets her story in three different time periods, the late 1890s, the 1960s and the present. By alternating chapters from each period she weaves them together to create a single theme - growth. Lilac Mines itself grows and shrinks, coming back stronger with each incarnation. The book also addresses the growth of the lesbian experience, starting with that period when the culture was dominated by "butches and femmes" who had to deal with a society that hated and persecuted them openly and coming into the future where the situation is better, if still not yet perfect. Anna Lisa, as the one who straddles the two periods, shows the most growth and confusion. Klein apparently doesn't expect the reader to like all of her characters, but they are written in a way to make the reader listen to their points of view.
There is a lot to digest in this novel. At times it appears to be wandering around and the reader may wonder where all of this is heading. This is one that has to be read carefully and then thought about before the entire story is appreciated. This is definitely not a book for a casual reading.
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Lilac Mines A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Cheryl Klein Bernadette Dunne Audible Studios Books Reviews
Great reviews already posted (beware of spoilers!) and they all sum up the book very well from different directions.
I enjoyed this novel. I wouldn't classify it as a romance, I think it better belongs in General Literature.
Several story lines are set within, and without, a family and California.
In no particular order we have twenty-five year old Felix who has been dumped by her girlfriend, Los Angeles circa 2002. Felix is a great character and a unique individual with a good heart who sports a quirky appearance and a quirky outlook on life.
In 1965 her mother's sister Anna Lisa left home (Fresno, California) at age 19. We learn Anna Lisa's epic story over the course of the novel and it is a terrific one.
Lastly we learn about sixteen year old Lilac, who in 1899 vanished from the town Anna Lisa came to call home.
Fascinating characters all and I am glad I discovered this author who has a love affair with words and shares them with the reader. The author totally scored points with me for having Anna Lisa read 'The Girls in 3-B' by pulp classic author Valerie Taylor, who also wrote the classic 'Whisper Their Love'. Awesome !
OK, why would an over 40 hetero male like myself want to read an LBGT novel about a women's lesbian collective? There's only one answer for the same reason anyone reads novels.
I read westerns although I'm not a cowboy; I read sea stories though I'm not a sailor. (I've even written one Gold A Tale Of The California Gold Rush.) I read mysteries despite being neither a criminal or cop. We read novels to find out about other people--who they are and how they live. Emily Dickinson was read by middle-class Londoners to learn more about upper-class rural gentry; the gentry read Dickens to learn about the lower classes.
What first intrigued me about Lilac Mines is the fact it takes place mainly in a small mining-logging town in the Sierra, where the mine and the mill have shut down. I have lived in and visited just such towns; I'm tempted to look for it on a map. In fact, one of my own novels takes place in such a village.The Terrorist Plot at Gopherville
If I had to consider an adjective to describe Ms Klein's prose style, I couldn't come up with anything better than "superb." I like the way she plays with poetic imagery without ever overdoing it. "The moon was a copper penny waiting to be spent." Too much of that thing can turn into purple prose, but Klein understands the art of restraint. The story occupies three separate time lines, alternating from one to the other until finally the three converge. The generations become one, two living and one dead but still with a ghostly presence. I will not reprise the plot here; other reviewers have already done that. As someone else has remarked, this is not a casual read. The author demands work from the reader. I can only say the rewards are worth the effort.
...........Steve Bartholomew
There's not much to choose from when looking for lesbian non-fiction. Although the story is not riveting it is nonetheless interesting. It lives up to the stereotypes of the LA dyke and the central valley flannel shirt lesbian images. There is also a bit of mystery from many angles. Definitely worth the read.
Lilac Mines is a dense story to read. It's not that 352 pages are that long, but the material requires concentration and assimilation of a number of details.
Felix Ketay isn't prepared for the changes that occur in her life. First, her girlfriend runs off to Europe with a female punk rocker and Felix can't stop obsessing over that. Then her friends try to distract her by taking her for a night out at a lesbian bar and she becomes the victim of a vicious gay bashing. She doesn't feel safe at home, she doesn't feel safe going to work and her parents are driving her crazy. When her mother suggests she spend some time with her seldom seen Aunt Anna Lisa in a backwater town called Lilac Mines, Felix agrees more with dread than an eagerness to visit a relative.
Lilac Mines is an unusual town. It takes its name from the mysterious disappearance of a young girl in a nearby mine and the name may explain why the town is a magnet for lesbians in two different time periods. Anna Lisa has seen one period pass and the next one arrive in the form of her niece and if she's learned anything, it's to keep a low profile. Felix comes into a town that is haunted by the mystery and in denial of what is going on right in front of it. As she tries to solve what happened to Lilac Ambrose and unravel the truth about her aunt, she finds that she learns even more about herself.
Klein sets her story in three different time periods, the late 1890s, the 1960s and the present. By alternating chapters from each period she weaves them together to create a single theme - growth. Lilac Mines itself grows and shrinks, coming back stronger with each incarnation. The book also addresses the growth of the lesbian experience, starting with that period when the culture was dominated by "butches and femmes" who had to deal with a society that hated and persecuted them openly and coming into the future where the situation is better, if still not yet perfect. Anna Lisa, as the one who straddles the two periods, shows the most growth and confusion. Klein apparently doesn't expect the reader to like all of her characters, but they are written in a way to make the reader listen to their points of view.
There is a lot to digest in this novel. At times it appears to be wandering around and the reader may wonder where all of this is heading. This is one that has to be read carefully and then thought about before the entire story is appreciated. This is definitely not a book for a casual reading.
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