Cecile: Stories - Softcover

Robson, Ruthann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156341001X ISBN 13: 9781563410017

Publisher: Firebrand Books, 1991

Synopsis

Chronicles the elusive quality of daily lives in her three characters' the narrator, her lover, Cecile, and Colby, their child.

About this title

Reviews

These 19 first-person stories form an insightful narrative that chronicles the daily events and small epiphanies in the relationship of a lesbian couple with a young son. The book follows the nameless protagonist's sometimes painful reflections on her past before meeting Cecile; her inner journey to self-acceptance; and her outer journey from lush Florida to the earthquake-stricken Bay Area to the urban desperation of New York City. Robson's ( Eye of a Hurricane ) writing is spare and graceful, with wonderfully original sparks of sarcasm and wit ("the land looks burnt, as if by an encounter with a terrible hairdresser") sprinkled liberally throughout. The early Florida stories are the strongest: "The Room(s)" in which the narrator glories in "the perfect universe" of the bedroom she and Cecile have created; "Minneapolis, Minnesota and Monogamy" and "Learning to Read," which explore the narrator's and her family's stances in regard to aspects of contemporary lesbian life and culture. Some of the shorter stories are not as fully developed or as focused as they might be, but this does not mar the appeal of this intelligent, lively volume.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This work is a series of interconnected episodes told in a breezy and unpretentious style. The narrator and Cecile are a modern-day Ozzie and Harriet coparenting a boy named Colby. Though caught up in the round of daily concerns, they are not naive or bland but likable, even quirky. Nearly all the situations they confront are ordinary ones, though a few aren't solved as easily as others. Yet ultimately the beauty of these stories is their very ordinariness: they show a family unit of two women and their son in circumstances that aren't very different from those of any other family. Recommended for public libraries, especially where patrons share these characters' concerns.
-Lisa Nussbaum, formerly with Cambria Cty. P.L., Johnstown, Pa.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Firebrand Books
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 156341001X
• ISBN 13: 9781563410017
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 164