sass - . .$\.» .s\\\zs‘ Complete health care for children, adults and elders a welcoming, respectful, and responsive staff a All major private insurance and managed care plans accepted a Visits start at $5 for the uninsured o Mental Health Counseling Services a Open four nights a week andlsaturdays Visit our booth at Pride! HC Community tteatth Center at anrtington 617 Riverside Avenue Burlington, VT 05401 (802) 864-6309 Vermont’s . Comprehensive Care Clinics for HIV/AIDS Care Phone #: 1-800- 358-1144 eXt..4594 ..-/" 2 1 t be it Earl ‘st- i\-—?.. I lg .,}W_!t,7 .hnsbury B“"‘"3f?‘3!g: . , i _ _ if it ‘ 1 ,_ ll _ 1‘/’l,,,..‘> Brattleboro - ‘v ' I The stone Hearth Inn & Tavern ‘ I ~ " 4‘ Chester — Southem Vermont Federal Styie Home Built Circa 1810 " 7‘ , , converted to an Inn about 1940 . “‘ ‘ 9 Guest Rooms with Private Bath Minutes to Weston Playhouse, Grafton, Antiques 8: Dining Room Rates from $59 forz People - Including Breakfast Relax in the Green Mountains This summer 1S Minutes from Ludlew, Springfield and Bellows Falls Route 1 1 West. Cheslzr 05143 802-875-2525 or 888-61 7-3656 www.th estoneh earth inn.com Bv EUAN BEAR. “Self-published” equals “vanity press” to me — where instead of the publisher paying the author, the author pays the publisher. If a work isn’t good enough to get published by a real publishing house, straight, lesbian/gay, or otherwise altema- tive, then it’s probably junk. Or so I thought until one ladmit it: I’m a publishing snob. I of Mary Randall’s seven sisters (the one who lives in Vermont) handed me a copy of Ma1y’s book Nancy Never Married (published by X- Libris, a “print-on-demand” — aka self-publishing — outfit) and asked me to read and review it. I gave her no guarantees and worked hard to deflate any expectations. I shouldn’t'have bothered — with the deflating, I mean. Nancy Never Married is as good as any lesbian lit l’ve read in the last five years. I can’t imagine why it wasn’t picked up by Spinsters Ink or New Victoria, unless the agent who shopped it around ten years ago spurned the women’s presses in _ favor of the big mainstream houses, who couldn’t figure out how to market it. The story opens with the nurse-tumed-poet first-person nar- rator, Lee Ann Leonard, driving to Long Island from upstate New York to give a poetry reading, after which she is offered hospitality, then seduced by Maeve, a local free spirit. But the real plot is in the growth of the narrator, her abusive and non-monogamous ex-lover, and the lesbian — and straight — commu- nity they live in. Randall weaves in past and present almost seamlessly, delving into the constant stream of associations any given object or event can evoke: Maeve’s reaching for a bottle of ginko biloba cap- sules calls up the moment when Lee’s ex-lover Liz shouted “Ginko!” at the trees outside the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, and then her somewhat dis- appointing reaction to the paintings Lee wanted her to see. Liz, the ex-lover, is self- possessed and narcissistic. She threw things when angry, disap- peared for days — and nights — at a time, had sex with other women, and was maddeningly oblivious to any of Lee’s relationship expecta- tions. Lee called it quits and Liz moved out. But thoughts of Liz keep haunting Lee — and then she reappears, despite Lee’s friends’ best efforts to keep them apart. She’s changed, Liz says. She wants- Lee back. Sounds like lesbian soap opera — and it might be, except for the depth and richness of the writ- ing, the allusions to art and litera- ture, the warmth, quirkiness, and humor of the community, the hon- est but discomforting discussion of disability politics, the loyalty of the dyke couple who want to support Lee as a writer, the family of origin complications. I read the book in one sit- ting - and I enjoyed it so much, I read it again'a month later. In our interview, Mary Randall wouldn’t specify how auto- biographical this novel is, but there are strong resonances: both “Lee” and Mary grew up in Long Island and moved to the Adirondacks, both come from Catholic families with I3 children, both work in the healthcare/social service field, and, of course, both are writers, though the offer of financial support that Lee gets from her friends is appar- ently wishfixl thinking in Mary Randall’s life. Randall, aged 47 and the seventh of the 13 siblings, wrote the book more than 10 years ago in longhand at first, then typed the manuscript on an electric type- writer, doing the two-finger hunt- and-peck through seven more drafis. “I cut typing class to play chess with my English teacher,” ‘She explained. Before that, she wrote plays for LILT — the Long “Nancy" author Mary Randall Island Lesbian Thespians — and poetry. “Writing becomes the act of remembering,” she declared over a plate of spicy garlic beans at a Chinese restaurant on the South Burlington-Shelbume line. “Every moment of your life exists in every other moment. And every now and "then you’re aware of the collision.” Those collisions permeate Nancy Never Married. _lt’s not about hold- ing grudges, but about not forget- ting what has gone before. She compares writing with dancing through a story: “In my late thirties, I used to go to The‘ Bunkhouse, a gay bar, where they did line dancing. There were some very interesting and intricate steps and routines. I so wanted to be part of the dance, but I couldn’t. I’d watch, and pace along the edge of the floor like an animal. When I finally joined in, I remember the moment when I felt part of the dance: ‘I’m here, I’m flying through the air, and I love it!’ “Writing is being part of the literature I love. Self-conscious- ness interferes with the ability to be in the moment.” Although most authors dread rewriting, Randall claims to “love” the process of doing every draft. “The story pours out — crafis- manship comes later. Most first- draft lines come out misshapen.” She’s working on yet another drafi of her second novel, which she last looked at eight years ago. “I lost the disk, so I’m retyp- ing it from a hardcopy. There's a certain discipline to that, and the joy of rediscovery. To write is to remember,” she says again. If her second novel is anything like as good as her first, it’ll pay to remember Mary Randall’s name. V Nancy Never Married is available at North Country Books in Burlington, In the Alley Bookshop in Middlebury, and‘Briggs Carriage Book Store in Brandon.