PLOT
Casey Ellison, star of her high school basketball team, is headed to the big-time: she has earned a scholarship to play women's basketball for Oklahoma Tech. Casey lives for basketball first, and no-strings-attached sex with women second. She's not out to learn anything at college or to grow internally in any way. Maybe one of her many sex partners can help change that.
GENRE
I would classify this as Lesbian Fiction, but, although there is a romantic subplot, not as the subset of that genre known as lesbian Romance. To my mind, "lezfic" is distinguished from mainstream or literary fiction with lesbian characters (e.g. Sarah Waters' work) in that it is directed toward a predominantly lesbian readership. Romance seems to be the biggest subset of lesbian fiction, but this book does not meet the requirements of Romance: that the book focus on the development of love between the leads and end with the promise of their long-term happiness.
WRITING STYLE/VOICE
In her survey of lesbian sports literature, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj refers to LL as "contemporary lesbian pulp" and describes Garrett's writing as fast-paced but superficial. The fact that the book is almost back-to-back alternating scenes of basketball and sex seems to support the designation as pulp, and it's true that Casey does not benefit from nuanced characterization or internal growth.
However, Lenskyi is drastically undervaluing the greatest strength of the book and Garrett as a writer: this writing is not merely "fast-paced," but tremendously muscular and energetic, sizzling with a kinetic energy that leaps off the page. Like the sport of basketball, the writing is dizzyingly quick as it jumps from one vivid visual to the next; the choppy, abrupt starts and stops mimic the passing of the ball and make the reader feel as though he or she is metaphorically courtside, even when the scene doesn't include a game!
Although the Point of View is third person, and an especially detached one at that (in which we never feel we are inside Casey's mind or heart), it is still filtered through the character of Casey. That character, self-described as butch, is surrounded by a crackling masculine energy; this is reflected in the punchy, informal, assertive writing voice Garrett demonstrates.
"And you're on, out front, miles from the whirling violence, where the sport reaches its true beauty...one-on-one with [your arch-rival]. This is it. All the dreams and hard work on the line, the crucial game you've played a million different times in your mind on a million different playgrounds. No doubts. Composure. The ball slick, from everyone's sweat...from your fear. Soaring as high as you can, ignoring the Missouri hand in your face, the Missouri body soaring, pressing damp and hot against yours, the grunt of desire from a Missouri woman trying to achieve what she wants, trying to keep you from what you want, what you need...Do you need it more than she does? Prove it!" (p. 188).
In my opinion, this writing style is not only effective; several times, it approaches artful. Pulp novel or not, Garrett has raw writing talent that has the potential to surpass standard genre fiction fare. Of course, not everyone considers literary writing to be preferable to popular genre styles, and it isn't necessarily; they serve two different purposes. But regardless of Garrett's goals as an author, there is a literary writer inside her that is struggling to get out. Maybe in the years since LL's publication, that writer has nurtured her skill to the degree it needs to truly shine.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
There is very little in the way of character development here, and this is the difference between a piece of fiction that entertains and a piece of literature that both entertains and enlightens, that makes us think and grow along with the character. On paper, this protagonist makes a journey: from unrepentant womanizer to a young woman capable of emotional attachment to another human being. However, it is not a fully fleshed-out or emotionally realized journey, and thus, the character arc feels unconvincing to the reader.
What do I mean by "not fully fleshed-out?" I mean that Garrett has the opposite problem of many new writers; she does too much "showing" (Casey's outward actions and choices) and not enough "telling" (Casey's internal thought processes and emotional state of mind).
Because of this failure to fully develop the protagonist's emotional journey, LL can never be a five star novel, the dynamism and energy of the writing notwithstanding.
THEMES
Garrett does an outstanding job of presenting athleticism and sexuality as closely tied to one another. Scientists have long explored the link between the two, theorizing about the greater sex appeal of athletes (because we subconsciously associate them with stamina and vigor, two sexually useful traits) and about the possible hormonal links between men's consistently higher sex drives and their consistently more athletic and martial inclinations.
Many of Garrett's descriptions of athletic ability are sexually-charged, and many of her descriptions of sex are athletically-charged. She writes of Casey's blossoming adolescent knowledge that she is a lesbian: "She'd always thought playing games against girls was exciting. The feel of a breast against her arm while playing defense in basketball, a hard collision in field hockey and the feminine grunt and muttered `b--tch' from the girl she'd collided with, the musky smell of a sweaty girl when she barreled into second base in softball, knocking the other girl down and rolling in the dust with her." (p. 11).
That brings us to the sexual content. It is prolific, varied, surprising, creative, and sometimes even a bit unsettling. We're talking things like four-way group sex with identical twins (one hairy; one shaved bald, to differentiate) who are in the same three-way "marriage" with a third woman and having a polygamous affair with a fourth. (Note to Garrett: sisters should not be involved in the same sexual experience, much less long term relationship, or else risk revolting your readers!).
Some might feel that this sexual content is presented merely for titillation, as "pulp" fodder. Maybe it is; after all, none of these creative sexual episodes advances Casey's knowledge of herself or the world she inhabits. After the orgasms are over, she--and we the readers--goes on as before. At the end of this novel, when Casey is shown developing an exclusive relationship with one of her sex partners, there is no indication that she has learned anything from her years of womanizing that can sustain this fledgling romance. Contrast this with a book like Ronica Black's CHASING LOVE (which I have reviewed on Amazon), in which the womanizing protagonist *does* learn from her experiences and settles in convincingly to a long-term relationship.
But this book is fascinating in how utterly different it is from contemporary lesbian fiction, with the latter's emphasis on true love and romance and sex presented as more of an "icing on the cake of love." No, LL's vision of lesbians is one of women who are proactively driven towards sex with women. Like the adolescent Casey in the excerpt I offered above, *that's* why they're lesbians: because they are homosexual, not necessarily because women appeal more to them emotionally. It's an intrinsically political, in-your-face, "screw you, conservatives" vision of lesbianism, an endorsement of it as a literal sexual orientation--and an active and sometimes kinky one--- and not the more fuzzy warm contemporary idea of "I just love who I love" and "Love doesn't have a gender."
As seen from inside the mind of butch womanizer Casey Ellison, this vision of lesbian identity is an energetic and exciting one, a vision of powerful, driving sexuality. But I wondered if maybe this vision of what being a lesbian is stemmed less from this particular author and character and more from the time frame in which this author came of age (possibly the 60s or 70s). Sometimes Karin Kallmaker's early work, though far less explicit than Garrett's here, touches on the same idea, that lesbianism is at its core, by definition, about sexual orientation---i.e. who you are driven to sexually desire-- as opposed to romantic affinity, and that we should not be afraid to show off this sexual component to political opponents of LGBT rights and culture.
I have one other note to make about the sexual politics in this novel, and that is that Garrett takes on racial and cultural difference and has her protagonist--an equal opportunity womanizer-- deal with them bluntly and often inelegantly. Sometimes the ethnic characterizations of minority women skirt too close to caricature for comfort, and this is in exposition that comes directly from the author herself, not through the character of Casey.
For instance, Black women are presented in two forms only: sexual temptress who messes with the White protagonist's head, and nurturing, asexual Mammy-figure. Both of these hackneyed figures should be familiar to anyone who has taken a hard look at the racial and sexual politics of the U.S. (There is an even-tempered Black female coach who would otherwise be a refreshing change of pace,... Read more ›
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