{"id":921,"date":"1992-07-07T20:34:39","date_gmt":"1992-07-08T01:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=921"},"modified":"2012-07-07T20:39:14","modified_gmt":"2012-07-08T01:39:14","slug":"921","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/921\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991"},"content":{"rendered":"

The GLBTRT has been reviewing books and movies in its newsletter since the early 1990s. Trace the evolution of queer publishing through these historic reviews. This review was originally\u00a0published in\u00a0Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 1992<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991. By Minnie Bruce Pratt. Firebrand Books, 1991. Paper. $10.95. (ISBN 1-56341-006-0)<\/a><\/p>\n

Activist, essayist, and award winning poet Minnie\u00a0Bruce Pratt’s strong voice speaks to us in this collection of\u00a011 essays written in the past twelve years. Some are taken\u00a0from speeches or talks she gave at Vanderbilt, Cornell,\u00a0Southern Women’s Music and Comedy Festival, AfroAmerican and White-American Women’s organizing\u00a0conference, the Guggenheim Museum upon accepting the\u00a0Lamont poetry award, and the National Women’s Studies\u00a0Conference. Others are previously published pieces, from\u00a0Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South<\/em> (collective run\u00a0journal she helped found) and other journals.<\/p>\n

Born and raised “Southern white Christian” in\u00a0central Alabama in the segregated 1950’s and 1960’s, Pratt\u00a0recounts for us the painful process of dealing with the\u00a0racism and anti-Semitism inherent in her upbringing and\u00a0our culture. She speaks of how she lost her two young\u00a0sons, in the heat of her divorcing husband’s hate, when\u00a0she came out as a lesbian and refused to deny it; and the\u00a0joy of having the love and respect of those two young men\u00a0now. In “I Plead Guilty to Being a Lesbian,” she and other\u00a0members of LIPS affinity group describe the excitement,\u00a0frustrations, and incredible joy of the October 1987 civil\u00a0disobedience at the Supreme Court, protesting among\u00a0other things the 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick decision so\u00a0detrimental to campaigns to repeal sodomy laws.<\/p>\n

This is an unabashed and painfully honest\u00a0account of her life of self-examination, always questioning,\u00a0asking the never before asked, challenging assumptions.\u00a0Her writing style is expert-scholarly but not pedantic;\u00a0passionate and polemical, and unpretentious.<\/p>\n

The author was recipient of the ALA\/GLTF 1991\u00a0Gay \/Lesbian Book Award for her book of poetry, Crime\u00a0Against Nature<\/em>. I recommend this book of essays for adult\u00a0collections in public and academic libraries.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Dana Artemis Fogg<\/strong>
\nMLS Student
\nTexas Woman’s University
\nDenton, TX<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GLBTRT has been reviewing books and movies in its newsletter since the early 1990s. Trace the evolution of queer publishing through these historic reviews. This review was originally\u00a0published in\u00a0Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 1992. Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991. By Minnie Bruce Pratt. Firebrand Books, 1991. Paper. $10.95. (ISBN 1-56341-006-0) Activist, essayist, and award winning poet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,46,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921"}],"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\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}