Several years ago, I ran into references to this book as an in-process project and have been waiting eagerly for its publication. Blogging it as a LHMP entry is a bit meta: a blog in support of lesbian historical fiction looking at a study of lesbian historical fiction as a genre. Garber is looking at a number of questions that have been simmering in the back of my mind over the years of looking at LHF as a field. Why do we write historical fiction? In particular, why do we write queer historical fiction? And what does it mean to write specifically lesbian historical fiction? How does this genre re-fashion history to fit the needs of lesbian identity? And how does it re-fashion lesbian identity to fit the context of history?
I'm particularly delighted to find that Garber identified a trope that I'm also fascinated by and has given it a name: the "romance of the archives". That is, the type of cross-time story in which a (relatively) contemporary person is exploring and coming to grips with their own identity and relationships by means of researching specific queer-coded individuals in the past. I intend to adopt this label for my own use.
As is often the case with academic books, some of the chapters were originally independent papers, which can give an episodic or patchwork feel to the whole. Certain subgenres are given prominence by having a chapter focus on them, others get far less mention. Some chapters focus more on "literary" works, others on genre fiction. And--as is also common with academic books--there's a point when you have to stop accumulating primary material and start the analysis, so the content is strongly focused on publications from the 1990s and 2000s, with a much smaller proportion from the 2010s than their representation in the field. It also focuses almost exclusively on the output of small presses, with almost no examples of self-published or author-imprint books. This may help explain some of the differences between Garber's take on popular themes and my own analysis. For example, I don't see "western" stories being as predominant as she does, but it may be that among earlier works from the small presses this is a more accurate assessment.
It was a lot of fun to read through this book and find many of my own thoughts and assessments echoed there. OMG, lesbian/sapphic historical fiction is a real field of serious study! I don't usually talk about upcoming interview prospects until I have them recorded, just in case things fall through, but I'll be daring enough to note that I'm in discussion with Professor Garber to come on the podcast to talk about her work.
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