![]() ![]() Gilda is queer, brave, introspective, desperate to find a community, and all too generous in the inspiration she gives in exchange for human blood. On the one hand, Gilda is an amazing character to use to explore the assumptions we make. This leads to both great highs and some lows in the story’s telling. Despite the omnipresent narrator of each story, Gilda, our bisexual Black heroine, remains the central focus of the book, a character both explored in all her complexities and who explores the opportunities and complexities of the human existence. ![]() Review: Although I call it a novel in the title, Jewelle Gomez’s queer classic reads more like a collection of short stories. Trigger Warnings: Attempted Rape, Domestic Abuse, Racism, Racial Slurs (mostly mild) An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story. After being initiated into eternal life as one who “shares the blood” by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. Summary: This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. ![]()
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