My Lesbian Husband: Landscapes of a Marriage - Hardcover

Borich, Barrie Jean

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1555972926 ISBN 13: 9781555972929

Publisher: Graywolf Press, 1999

Synopsis

Winner of the American Library Association GLBT Book Award

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award

About this title

About the Author

Barrie Jean Borich is the winner of many literary awards and is the author of Restoring the Color of Roses (Firebrand Books), a memoir set in the Calumet region of Chicago where she grew up. Today she lives with her beloved, Linnea Stenson, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and teaches at Hamline University and Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

From the Back Cover

"In My Lesbian Husband, Barrie Jean Borich asks a fascinating question: do the names we give our relationships change their meanings? Each chapter entertains an aspect of this question with prose that is spirited, artful, anything but pat. Here is an author who takes neither love nor the power of language for granted, and her book is as provocative and lively as the love it evokes. An extraordinary performance by a writer who renews our wonder at the complexity of human connection." --Bernard Cooper

"Barrie Jean Borich wins my respect with her ingenious and original description of feelings which, for many, need translating into a familiar language. She writes about her lover and their life together with a rare deftness, clarity, and antic sense of humor, never strident or defensive, rather self-confident and as if she herself were curious to discover what she is thinking about their relationship." --Rosellen Brown

From the Inside Flap

My Lesbian Husband

"In language as charged as the air between lovers, Barrie Jean Borich offers us a gorgeous and tender aria to marriage. She tells of discovering with astonishment, through twelve years of devotion to the same sturdy woman, how much she delights in fidelity. She tells of slowly weaving her unsanctioned love into the fabric of her family, in among brothers and sisters-in-law, among nieces and nephews and wary parents. She describes the alchemy of turning a house into a home. Through it all, she writes like a woman possessed-- enraptured by the sensual pleasures of words, by the power of stories, by the gravity of neighborhood. She reminds us that marriage is made not by the joining of bodies shaped a certain way, but by the joining of two lives, careers, and histories in one place, in one embrace."
Scott Russell Sanders

Barrie Jean Borich is the winner of many literary awards and is the author of Restoring the Color of Roses (Firebrand Books), a memoir set in the Calumet region of Chicago where she grew up. Today she lives with her beloved, Linnea Stenson, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and teaches at Hamline University and Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Reviews

A passionate, intricately composed memoir of the authors long-term love relationship, set against the backdrop of their Minneapolis neighborhood and complicated family ties. With colorful, witty, richly woven prose, Borich (Restoring the Color of Roses, not reviewed) invites the reader into a life that is at once ordinary and wholly unique. Alternating between different years in her relationship, and leading up to her actual wedding, Borichs narrative unfolds like a patchwork quilt. She offers sketches of her family, daily dog walks, city noises and urban dramas, her collection of kitschy Madonna art, and her lovers obsession with motorcycles and birdwatching. Though clearly a romantic, Borich is no fool. She acknowledges the precariousness of permanence even as her prose swirls around her and her lovers entwined feet: I doubt our lives or loves are predetermined. . . . Much of the time I get to choose, and I dont need a psychic to tell me which is the happier destiny. Today I choose to cling to this world, to Linneas arm, as the planet where we live inches around its axis again and we breathe in and out, wondering what will happen tomorrow. Borich does skimp a bit on the nitty-gritty of tensions, problems, and arguments that must have arisen over 12 years of partnership. But if she errs on the side of bliss, she does so by staying rooted in everyday experience. She is similarly egalitarian in her portrayal of family members and the ways in which heterosexual bonding is awarded more legitimacy by her parents, aunts, and cousins. One of the moving aspects of the book is how some of these family members shift over the years toward more acceptance of Borich and her lesbian husband. Much broader than a lesbian interest title, this book will resonate with many readers, regardless of sexual orientation, bringing a nod of recognition to some, a twinge of longing to others. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Thoughtfully mapping the landscape of love and commitment outside the legal and societal comfort zone of state-sanctioned marriage, Borich repeatedly asks Linnea, her lover of "twelve years and counting": "Are we married?" It's not an accusation, a manipulative device or a pointed query so much as an attempt to probe what it means to be in love and to share a life for many years without the social benefits and familial recognition granted to Borich's two married younger brothers. Not merely another queer commentary (or diatribe) on marriage, this memoir is foremost a graceful and compelling rumination on love. In the course of her paean to Linnea, and using their life together on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis as a kind of metaphor, Borich ponders how she got to this place in her life. A recovered substance abuser who once spiraled perilously downward, devoid of any focus beyond hanging out, Borich is truly in recovery, a partner in a love that literally reconfigures her existence. Elucidating a host of lesbian issues from the butch-femme dynamic to "serial non-monogamy" to changing sexual politics, Borich also addresses more global concerns, such as neighborhood confraternity, racism and violence. Though the narrative trajectory sags a bit during the endless idyll of Borich's love (which has no downside and is never punctuated by disagreements, except in the first year when a psychic led the author astray), this tale of heart and home and what it means to find both in a tough and alienating world offers many pleasures. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Borich's essays probe the nature of her lengthy "marriage" with her lover Linnea as well as the more traditional, heterosexual marriages entered into by those around her, such as her brother Paulie. She ponders the power of language--is Linnea her "wife" or her "husband" ?--to exert subtle force on interpersonal interactions. She recalls her past and mingles it with her present as she considers the charms of battered old Victorian houses, the trials and pleasures of walking her and Linnea's dog, Patsy, and many more homely details, domestic and otherwise. She writes with humor and compassion and overall humanity about what are, finally, perfectly ordinary--and extraordinary--lives. Whitney Scott

In her new memoir (following Restoring the Color of Roses), Borich discusses the life and love she shares with her long-term partner, Linnea. She writes movingly and with great wit about her experiences as a lesbian wife in a world that still doesn't quite know what to make of her relationship. In a group of well-crafted essays, she describes the milestones of their 12 years together and explores the effect that tradition and the limitation of language has had on their union. She writes of her ambivalence toward marriage, her abiding fear of losing autonomy to her spouse, and the insufficiency of the English language for accurately describing her bond with her beloved. She also considers how she and Linnea have reconfigured traditions and how they make do with existing wordsAsuch as wife, husband, and soulmateAto express their love. A lovely book; highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries.AKimberly L. Clarke, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Minneapolis
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555972926
• ISBN 13: 9781555972929
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312