Prism by Valerie Taylor

Prism Reviews

• 
  Stephy

  This Author, Valerie Taylor also wrote "Return to Lesbos," a popular lesbian novel from the late seventies, and several other books in the Lesbian Pulp Fiction genre. I read them before time began.
  
  She had been married with children until she came out, and had one son, possibly two. When I first knew her, she was a dear woman, just past sixty years of age. Her life partner of many years, lesbian Lawyer Pearl Heart, had died just before we met. I was proud to call her my dear friend for years. We visited, chatted and exchanged letters for many years.
  
  She published a book of Poetry with another lesbian poet, Jeannette Foster, author Of Sex Variant Women in Literature, a mighty overview of lesbians in literature.
  
  She was involved in, and Keynote Speaker at two Lesbian Writer's Conferences in Chicago, organized by Marie Kuda and other lesbian Writers in the Chicago Area.
  
  When she retired from her long time job at a clipping service and from her daytime editor job, she moved, First to Margretville, New York, where she lived in the small town of her dreams. Making a fresh start in life in her early sixties. She had a brief but passionate affair with a widowed straight woman, who broke her heart. She spoke of this woman but once to me, when she later quipped, "These mixed marriages never work out."
  
  She had a very bad fall on the ice that winter, and broke some bones. When she recovered, her son helped her move across the country to relocate someplace with no ice. She always had pain where she had broken bones,
  
  Tucson, Arizona was the place she chose to rebuild her life from scratch yet another time; this time permanently. She became Mother Goddess to a whole new group of young lesbians, who loved her and lovingly cared for as she aged. A couple or three women moved in to care for her for several years, until she was unable to live at home.
  
  Then she moved into a nursing home, where her friends raised money to pay for the cost of her care, and checked on her daily until her quiet death. She died surrounded by her friends, and was mourned Nationally in Lesbian and Gay Media. I, too, mourned her, and took comfort in the fact that she had a productive, full life and was beloved by all who knew her.
• 
  Kay

  A great followup to Valerie Taylor’s pulp paperbacks from the 1950s and 1960s, some of which really troubled the waters between pulp and literature (and were published as hardbacks elsewhere). Fun to read this as a reflection of her time attempting to retire to Margaretville, NY before deciding Tucson was more her speed. That chapter of her life would have been recently finished by the time this was published—maybe she was writing the story she had hoped for herself.
  
  Reminded me some of Return to Lesbos in the description of the upstairs apartment, the definitive way the love story unfolds—the pursuing character is so certain, and the pursued is shortly the same, though there’s reservations.
  
  She really is a very good writer. Her rendering of living in a small New York town after a life in a big city is so persuasive I was sure there was snow drifting outside my window after reading one of her chapters.
• 
  B.C. Brown

  A touching look at love and aging. Valerie Taylor, while sometimes dated in her views of homosexuality, delivers a powerful tale of romance between two aging women in small town USA.
  
  As a 21st century reader, one must have the mindset that Taylor lived and wrote as a bisexual, if not complete lesbian living a "proper" life with usband and children, when homosexuality was touted at sinful, unholy, and dishonorable. But even with Taylor's own sometimes disparaging comments to her own sexuality, she writes with a simplistic beauty that touches the reader.
  
  The story takes place between an aging woman at the epitome of retirement who has always been secure in her lesbianism and an also aging woman who had never explored hers. A fast friendship sparks up and the lead woman, resolute that being retired and sixty-five means she'll never experience love or sex again. When she moves to small town USA and meets a woman who strikes her fancy, she rejects the notion she can ever act on it or that the other woman might reciprocate.
  
  Until the apple orchard. And a world is opened anew for each woman. The main character explores the continuation of love and sexuality, and the other woman begins to explore uncertain feelings and sexuality that she never was sure she possessed.
  
  Taylor delivers a touching, well written tale of love at any age. From what I understand she herself was older, having been married to a man and producing children, before fully embracing and exploring her lesbianism. The author's own emotions and thoughts are clearly evident, making the story so much more poignant and heartfelt.
  
  I loved this book. As evidenced by the five star rating, I'd re-read it.
• 
  Mel

  This was just wonderful. I can't remember when I cried as much at the end of the book as I did reading this. I've read a few of Valerie Taylor's earlier pulp novels but this was better. It was lovely to read a book, especially a lesbian book, where the characters weren't young teenagers or college girls discovering their identity. Here you had an older woman who'd been comfortable with her sexuality for decades and was now starting retirement. Granted her partner was "new" but there wasn't really coming out angst as a, how do we get around our families and have a normal life. It was fascinating and a wonderful glimpse at recent history. Interesting to see how many things were different a couple days ago and yet how much was the same. It was also a touching story with real characters. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
• 
  Bettycindy

  A bit dated, but a good love story.