{"id":84,"date":"2009-04-07T09:15:09","date_gmt":"2009-04-07T14:15:09","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-04-19T09:34:49","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T14:34:49","slug":"fist_of_the_spider_woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/fist_of_the_spider_woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Fist of the Spider Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire.<\/em> Amber Dawn, ed. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2009. 190p. $17.95. ISBN: 9781551522517.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This collection of five poems and eleven short stories addresses how fear and fantasy intersect for queer women. Considering this topic, it isn&#8217;t surprising that many of the tales involve SM sex turning frighteningly real; however, the ones that stand out are those that either transcend this idea or deviate from it.<\/p>\n<p>One of the best among this collection is <strong>Nomy Lamm<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Conspiracy of Fuckers,&#8221; a story about a phone sex worker who hates giving into the trite, traditional fantasies of her clients, yet is inevitably drawn to them in the end. Just as compelling is <strong>Amber Dawn<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental in East Vancouver,&#8221; which takes place in a house inhabited by a young dyke couple and haunted by a violent lesbian ghost.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Elizabeth Bachinsky<\/strong>&#8216;s poems addressed to the <strong>Marquis de Sade<\/strong> reveal her conflicted emotions about SM sex, and <strong>Aurelia T. Evans<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;In Circles&#8221; reframes the childhood legend of Bloody Mary, describing the fate of intersex women at the hands of a demon who forces them to look at their bodies before she kills them.<\/p>\n<p>Not all the entries work; <strong>Suki Lee<\/strong>&#8216;s story about being stalked by a Parisian landlady takes a bizarre turn when the narrator is covered with the bodies of dead mice, and <strong>Megan Milks<\/strong>&#8216; fantasy about sex with a giant slug will have limited appeal.<\/p>\n<p>Purchase for women&#8217;s studies collections and where queer fiction is popular, but make no mistake: This is erotica, and will draw challenges in some communities.<\/p>\n<p>Reviewed by <strong>Daisy Porter<\/strong><br \/>\nSenior Librarian<br \/>\nSan Jos\u00e9 Public Library<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire. Amber Dawn, ed. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2009. 190p. $17.95. ISBN: 9781551522517. This collection of five poems and eleven short stories addresses how fear and fantasy intersect for queer women. Considering this topic, it isn&#8217;t surprising that many of the tales involve SM sex turning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}