8 /10 1 Votes
4/5 Barnes & Noble Pages 373 pp. OCLC 22906565 Subject History of lesbianism | 4/5 Goodreads Publication date 1991 ISBN 978-0-231-07488-9 Originally published 1991 Genre Non-fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Columbia University Press Awards Stonewall Book Awards - Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award, Lambda Literary Award for Editor's Choice Award Nominations Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Nonfiction Similar Lillian Faderman books, Gender studies books, Homosexuality books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America is a non-fiction book by Lillian Faderman chronicling lesbian life in the 20th century. In 1992, it won the Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction and was selected as the "Editor's Choice" at the Lambda Literary Awards. In September 2011, Ms. magazine ranked the book 99th on its list of the top 100 feminist non-fiction books.
The book describes lesbian history as a pattern of alternately tolerant and intolerant decades for American lesbians between 1900 and 1960, as well as the improvements and adverse developments that the author perceives to have taken place since the 1960s.
Reception
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, novelist Francine Prose described Faderman's book as "full of facts and wonderful details that readers may not have encountered, things that are a pleasure to learn and that seem valuable to know." In The Washington Post, Susan Brownmiller called the book "a remarkable social history" that "attains the depth and evenhandedness of a scholarly classic". Toni McNaron wrote in the Journal of the History of the Behavior Science that "Faderman's ability to paint such a detailed and vivid picture of conditions in lesbian culture makes this book accessible to a general reading audience." Kath Weston says in her Signs review, "I have waited years for a book on lesbians or gay men to devote as much attention to class as Faderman has done in this volume."