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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 296 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 14b: Actresses and the Stage - transcript

(Originally aired 2024/09/21 - listen here)

Introduction

This episode is the second part of the “our f/favorite tropes,” essay on theater and actresses as a driving motif in historic romance. One subset of tropes particularly popular in contemporary romance are those focused on specific careers or jobs. When I started thinking about doing a show based on actresses, I realized that the situation was more complicated than simply talking about the dynamics of a romantic relationship involving a particular profession. Dramatic performance—especially the aspect of playing out roles with other people—adds in a whole other angle to romantic relationships that aren’t well represented in ordinary society.

In the first part of this essay last month, we looked at the content of plays and the nature of the profession of acting as a means for identifying, experiencing, and communicating female same-sex desire in historic settings. As part of that, we discussed when, where, and how women participated in theater. But was a sapphic presence on stage purely hypothetical? A motif that might stimulate the imagination of a fictional character? Or were lesbians part of the tradition of stage performance? (Regular listeners to the podcast will already know the answer is yes.) So today we’ll finish up the topic by looking at the historic association of actresses with non-normative sexuality, and especially with lesbianism.

Actresses as Sexual Beings

Several motifs contributed to social attitudes toward the sexuality of actresses, all stemming from the baseline misogyny and sexual double-standard of western culture. One element was a sense that women should not be “public beings.” That they should not have a public presence or role in society, but rather that their identities should be channeled through patriarchal structures, as an appendage to the family unit. This attitude affected many types of creative endeavor, including writing, poetry, and art. But it was especially pointed when applied to theater.

A women who participates in public theatricals was considered to be stepping outside the bounds of respectability. But more to the point, offering her public image and performance for the consumption of others was considered equivalent to offering her body for the consumption of others. To be an actress was, therefore, to be a type of prostitute, regardless of her actual sex life.

This attitude haunted professional actresses across the centuries, either pressuring them to combine the roles of performer and courtesan, or creating a sharp dichotomy between performers who embraced a libertine life in the demi-monde and those trying to maintain an image of “respectable” theater.

Moral objections to the participation of women in professional theater were often grounded in this reaction, resulting in widely varying official responses to the profession of actress, depending on the extent to which licensing bodies considered themselves responsible for policing public morals.

But it was also the case that when society classified actresses as inherently sexually transgressive, the roles of actress and courtesan could become merged. And although acting could give women a degree of economic agency and independence that was difficult for most women to achieve, it could also leave them socially vulnerable if they had no patron or protector. In some historic contexts, it was common for acting to be a “family profession” with women following a father or husband onto the stage. But in other contexts the nature of the profession set them outside typical family structures. For example, in later 18th century France, actresses were technically forbidden from marrying (as well as from receiving the sacrament).

As a consequence, in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was typical (though not universal) for an actress to find a male “protector” where it was expected that she would also serve as his mistress. But in a relevant twist, not all protectors were men.

Starting around the turn of the 19th century, English and American theater began to emphasize “respectability,” which meant that actresses often found their lives closely scrutinized. It also created something of a split between the bawdy music hall and vaudeville type performances and the more serious stage. Both existed side by side, but performers found it difficult to move between those worlds.

Coming back to the core focus of this podcast, in contexts when actresses were considered to be inherently libertine, one aspect was an assumption (or at least an accusation) that their sexuality encompassed both male and female partners. And in some cases there was a specific association with lesbianism, especially when an actress played “breeches roles” or when she declined to accept male protection.

Let’s look at some specific actresses who are either known to have been in same-sex relationships, or who were accused of it, or where the question played a significant role in their careers. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means—and, of course, most actresses were completely heterosexual. But these lives—even though sometimes improbable—can provide models for their fictional sisters.

Some Stage Lesbians (Real and Rumored)

As I’m going to do this roughly chronologically, it means I’m starting with a 17th century English woman who’s questionable both on the “actress” and “sapphic” aspects: Mary Frith, also known as Moll Cutpurse. As a fictional character on stage, it is implied that she desires both women and men, and she certainly messed with gender categories in habitually wearing male-coded garments and even occasionally completely cross-dressing. It is likely that she performed on stage herself, though it wasn’t her regular profession. She appears briefly as a character in Nathan Field’s 1618 play Amends for Ladies and it’s quite possible that Moll played the role on stage herself.

Two women in theatrical professions appear in thin disguise in Delarivier Manley’s early 18th century political satires. In The New Atalantis, one member of the sapphic “New Cabal” is intended to represent aristocrat Lucy Wharton, who had several female lovers, including opera singer Catherine Tofts. Playwright Catharine Trotter (whose work Agnes de Castro  has themes of passionate friendship between women) is also satirized as part of the New Cabal, along with her lover Catherine Colyear, who was created Countess of Dorchester in her own right as a consequence of having been the mistress of James II. Hey, these folks had complicated personal lives.

Another late 17th century actress with an extremely complicated personal life was Julie d’Aubigny, whose stage name was Mademoiselle de Maupin, or simply “La Maupin.” Raised somewhat unconventionally, including instruction with the sword, as a teenager she became the mistress of her father’s patron, who arranged a marriage of convenience for her with the Sieur de Maupin. Whereupon she ran away with her fencing instructor and the two went on tour giving fencing exhibitions and singing. She joined an opera company in Marseille and fell in love with a young woman there who was then packed off to a convent, but Julie broke her out. On her way to Paris, she wounded a nobleman in a duel, but then became his lover. She joined the Paris Opera courtesy of the influence of two mentors and made a name for herself on stage. Off stage, she continued to make love to women (and men), fight duels, and go through cycles of being exiled and pardoned. The last and greatest love of her life was the Marquise de Florensac, but when Madame la Marquise died unexpectedly, Julie retired from the stage with a broken heart.

France seems to have been center stage for flamboyantly lesbian actresses. In the later 18th century, Françoise-Marie-Antoinette-Joseph Saucerotte, known as Mademoiselle de Raucourt, followed the family trade of acting from an early age. By the early 1770s, she became famous playing roles with the Comèdie Française and enjoyed the dubious benefits of having Queen Marie Antoinette as a patron. Mademoiselle de Raucourt became a target of hostility both for her royalist loyalties and her reputation for female lovers including one Mademoiselle Souck and singer Sophie Arnould. Although she did occasionally have male lovers, Raucourt became a unique icon of lesbians on stage when she was turned into the fictional leader and spokesperson for the possibly apocryphal “Anandrine Sect” a supposed secret society of lesbians featured in pornographic literature. Despite some close calls during the revolution, Raucourt survived to become a director of the French theater in Italy under Napoleon traveling with a female companion, Henriette Simonnet de Ponty.

There’s at least a hint that England may have had its own theatrical-led Anandrine society, if this note from a German visitor to 1780s London is to be believed. He notes, “There are females who avoid all intimate intercourse with the opposite sex, confining themselves to their own sex. These females are called Lesbians. They have small societies, known as Anandrinic Societies, of which Mrs Y--, formerly a famous London actress was one of the presidents.” Regardless of the truth of the observation about lesbian sex clubs, the comment cements the popular connection between actresses and sex between women.

But it must be remembered that few of the actresses we’re discussing in this era were exclusive to one sex in their affections. French actress Gabrielle Malacrida, nicknamed “Carline,” was known for taking female lovers but also married a man. Marguerite-Henriette d’Aumont, duchess de Villeroy, didn’t let her marriage get in the way of organizing salons for a wide circle of aristocratic women with sapphic relationships, or in the way of being a patron for her lover the actress Clair Josèphe Hippolyte Leris. “La Clairon,” as she was known, described in her memoirs an early version of “method acting”.

Like several of the other women featured in this episode, 18th century English actress Charlotte Cibber Charke came to acting as a family profession, her father being actor, playwright, and theater manager Colley Cibber and her mother being actress and singer Katherine Shore. Charke became famous for playing “breeches roles” on stage…and off, leaving open the question of whether her penchant for going about in male disguise as “Mr. Brown” was a role or an identity. Both on stage and off she attracted the romantic interest of women who variously were and were not aware of her identity. Charke had a long-term partnership with another actress, identified in her memoirs only as “Mrs. Brown” with whom she raised a daughter from a brief early marriage. It isn’t clear whether their relationship was sexual, but Charke’s autobiography—which is the most detailed source of information on her life—may not have been candid on that point as it was published as a fund-raiser.

A generation later, sorting out the relationship between actress Sophia Baddeley and her long-term companion and business manager Elizabeth Hughes Steele isn’t any easier. Baddeley was a sometime actress and performer who found her talents more practical when turned to the business of entertaining rich and handsome men. Her tendency to spend freely and make rather bad choices in male protectors meant that Elizabeth’s deep and rather dysfunctional passion for her has more the flavor of co-dependency than romance. Through explosive breakups and tender reunions their lives remained entwined until Sophia’s death. At least one biographer concludes they were lovers (in between Sophia’s liaisons with men) and regardless of that aspect they were certainly emotionally entangled.

Late 18th century English actress Elizabeth Farren was definitely not a lesbian. Absolutely not. Despite the rumors that her close friendship with absolutely-a-lesbian sculptor Anne Damer was the reason why she resisted becoming the mistress of her protector, the Earl of Derby. In the end, she cut the friendship with Damer to maintain a spotless public reputation (and was eventually rewarded with marriage to the Earl, once his inconvenient wife died). But widespread beliefs about the sexuality of actresses were what made her consider such a drastic step necessary.

Two American actresses illustrate polar opposites in terms of theatrical respectability in the mid to late 19th century.

British-American actress Annie Hindle made her reputation in the mid to late 19th century performing as a male impersonator. After a brief and unhappy marriage to a male performer, all her subsequent romantic liaisons were with women, several of whom she married under the name Charles Hindle. It could be argued that Hindle should be considered transmasculine, but her stage performances were specifically as “a woman performing in male dress” and she only chose to pass as a man for the purpose of marrying women and not in everyday life. Her press clippings, though admiring, always carry an air of sensation and scandal.

In contrast, Charlotte Cushman, despite having a similar string of female lovers, maintained her image as a serious and respectable thespian, gaining international fame and fortune. Cushman played a wide variety of roles but gained particular fame for her breeches roles, including Romeo played opposite her sister’s Juliet. Her career took her from Boston and New York to London, where she found friendship and lovers among a circle of feminist intellectuals. Eventually she was part of an expatriate community of artists in Rome. Through it all, she had an overlapping series of female romantic partners that included journalist and actress Mathilda Hays, sculptor Emma Stebbins, and the much younger Emma Crow.

In contrast with the push for respectability in English and American theater, late 19th century Paris became the epicenter of sexual decadence, with both male and female homosexual communities converging around the theater, including drag performance, either in the form of performers or spectators. Lesbian scenes in theatricals could prompt censorship, as happened in the case of author Colette performing with her lover Mathilde de Morny in Rêve d’Égypte. But many other less well known women acted on similar Parisian stages.

Conclusions

In summary, during most of the known history of women on stage, there was a public perception that actresses had…shall we say “irregular” sex lives, and that irregularity could include having female lovers, whether among their fellow performers or with wealthy patronesses. Because theatrical performers were often considered to stand outside of respectable society, their romantic lives might be treated as yet one more public spectacle, to be accepted though not approved. At the same time, there could be a constant tension between striving for a respectability that society was disinclined to grant them and embracing the combination of freedom and vulnerability that came with living an unconventional life. These tensions underlie the appeal of theatrical romances up through the present day, where actresses balance between the fame and success that comes with becoming a public property, with the hazard of one’s most personal romantic life being treated as just another performance for the audience.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• Actresses as sexual outlaws
• Specific actresses known to have had same-sex romances

Bibliography

• Blanc, Olivier. 2001. “The ‘Italian Taste’ in the Time of Louis XVI, 1774-92” in Merrick, Jeffrey & Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 1-56023-263-3
• Cheek, Pamela. 1998. "The 'Mémoires secrets' and the Actress: Tribadism, Performance, and Property", in Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (eds), The "Mémoires secrets" and the Culture of Publicity in Eighteenth-Century France, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
• Choquette, Leslie. 2001. “’Homosexuals in the City: Representations of Lesbian and Gay Space in Nineteenth-Century Paris” in Merrick, Jeffrey & Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 1-56023-263-3
• Craft-Fairchild, Catherine. 2006. “Sexual and Textual Indeterminacy: Eighteenth-Century English Representations of Sapphism” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 15:3
• Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4
• Donoghue, Emma. 2010. “'Random Shafts of Malice?': The Outings of Anne Damer” in Lesbian Dames: Sapphism in the Long Eighteenth Century. Beynon, John C. & Caroline Gonda eds. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 978-0-7546-7335-4
• Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York. ISBN 0-688-00396-6
• Gonda, Caroline. 2010. “The Odd Women: Charlotte Charke, Sarah Scott and the Metamorphoses of Sex” in Lesbian Dames: Sapphism in the Long Eighteenth Century. Beynon, John C. & Caroline Gonda eds. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 978-0-7546-7335-4
• Katritzky, M.A. 2005. “Reading the Actress in Commedia Imagery” in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, edited by Pamela Allen Brown & Peter Parolin. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
• Manion, Jen. 2020. Female Husbands: A Trans History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-48380-3
• Merrick, Jeffry. 1990. “Sexual Politics and Public Order in Late Eighteenth-Century France: the Mémoires secrets and the Correspondance secrete” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, 68-84.
• Merrill, Lisa. 2000. When Romeo was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and her Circle of Female Spectators. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. ISBN 978-0-472-08749-5
• Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5
• Straub, Kristina. 1991. “The Guilty Pleasures of Female Theatrical Cross-Dressing and the Autobiography of Charlotte Charke” in Body guards : the cultural politics of gender ambiguity edited by Julia Epstein & Kristina Straub. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-90388-2
• Todd, Janet & Elizabeeth Spearing ed. 1994. Counterfeit Ladies: The Life and Death of Mary Frith Case of Mary Carleton. William Pickering, London. ISBN 1-85196-087-2
• Velasco, Sherry. 2000. The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire and Catalina de Erauso. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-78746-4
• Vicinus, Martha. 2004. Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-85564-3
• Wahl, Elizabeth Susan. 1999. Invisible Relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, Stanford. ISBN 0-8047-3650-2

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

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• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
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• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
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• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

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• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 294 – Follow the Monkey by Jamie McGhee - transcript

(Originally aired 2024/08/31 - listen here)

This quarter, I am proud to be able to present to you the story “Follow the Monkey” by Jamie McGhee, narrated by Cláudia Cruz Machado. This is a difficult story, set in colonial Brazil of the 1670s, with an unflinching look at the experiences of enslaved people on a sugarcane plantation. But it’s also a story of love, of loyalty, of hope, and of hard choices.

The author, Jamie McGhee is a novelist who aspires to build interactive spaces of resistance and experimentation, through language. Her books include You Mean It or You Don’t: James Baldwin’s Radical Challenge (co-authored with Dr. Adam Hollowell of Duke University) and What I Must Tell the World: The Story of Lorraine Hansberry. She is based in Berlin, where she instructs Ph.D. students at Humboldt University. You can find a link to her website with more information about her work in the show notes.

When I bought this story, I knew that it would challenge me to find a narrator with the right skills and background, but through professional connections I was able to find Cláudia Cruz Machado, who usually goes by the nickname Claw. As a multipotentialite, Claw is always involved in at least one creative project, and this is her first work as a narrator. Once chronically online, now a bit absent from the webs, she’s trying to find a way to navigate the current social network landscape in a way that feels authentic. She teaches English as a foreign language. Her Instagram and email links are in the show notes, and she also welcomes contacts for future game development projects through her itch.io account.

This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.

---

FOLLOW THE MONKEY

 

By Jamie McGhee

 

 

She runs in circles without the faintest idea that today is her last day on earth.

A final feast pours down from heaven: her weight in corn.

Right as she stretches her downy feather neck to snap up a kernel—shink! The blade slices.

She leaps away in a bawking flutter of feathers—and, finding herself alive, swivels back and forth between the hatchet and the corn, between death and dinner, before finally clucking curiously over to the hatchet. Her reflection shimmers long and distorted in the polished iron.

“Not afraid of being sacrificed, hm?” I run a gentle palm along the chicken’s back until she coos. Petting her reminds me of tending eiyele funfun in my home across the ocean, of grooming their cream-colored feathers and watching younglings sprout into full pigeons. “Does it bring your life meaning knowing it will be traded for something better?” Instead of answering, she purrs against my fingers.

Crack!

I dive behind a mountain of ox feed.

In the distance, a whip pops again: Crack! “Oi! Why are you animals lazing about?”

A wavering voice. “Sinto muito, Mãe da Silva.”

“Certo, you’d better be sorry.”

I peer through slats in the barn wall. Escravos—that’s what they call us—are unloading stalks of sugarcane from an oxcart. One escravo, however, rocks on all fours, moaning; the overseer’s whip has opened his back into a puckering wound. Even from far away I taste metal and blood in the air.

The head overseer muscles another escravo into a shoulder-lock. The plantation mistress, Mãe da Silva, wrinkles her nose. “Have you seen the macaquinha?”

“N-no, Mãe da Silva.”

“Where is that little monkey?” She all but stamps her foot. “If I have to delay the exhibition—! Ai, ever since those rebel brutes in Palmares learned to hold a musket, escravos believe they own the world.”

The overseer tosses the man aside like animal fodder. “I’ll put my men on alert.”

They vanish: Within seconds, the whip cracks! again. I shiver, massaging the knotted stripe that travels from my shoulder to hip, where Mãe da Silva marinated the wound with salt to ensure a fleshy scar. It throbs with the memory of pain.

The hen, meanwhile, pecks a kernel from my palm. “The trouble with sacrifice,” I mutter, “is that you rarely get what you want. Tomorrow, we’ll pray for those ‘rebel brutes’ to be victorious, but if they aren’t, was it worth your life? Is sacrifice worthwhile even if it fails?”

I peer the chicken in the eye, and she peers back. “Or in other words, should I actually risk telling her how I feel?”

“Do it.”

I spin. “Dandara!”

Dandara stretches into a lunge, her dress rumpling over the breeches underneath. “I don’t know what you’re asking the chicken this time, but whatever it is, I have faith in you.”

“Meu Deus!” I wrench her wrist into the light. “What happened?”

She yanks down her sleeve. “Nothing. I was practicing, and you know I earn more money when I incorporate flips, so—never mind that. I want to show you something.“

“Later.” I point. “Dê.”

She kneels and surrenders her arm, where a wound winds into a scarlet river from elbow to thumb. I snap an aloe leaf. “I despise Mãe da Silva for making you do this.”

“I know, but—ah!” Dandara jerks as I smear the cold liquid over her inflamed skin.

“Stop talking. I’m concentrating.” I uncoil a cloth strip. She’s so small she hardly grazes my shoulder, but years of performing have thickened her muscles into tree trunks. She could wrap them around my waist the same way I’m bandaging her forearm.

Tell her.

“Dandara, I—”

“Macaquinha!” A shrill cry. The ting-ting of a bell. “Little monkey!”

“Ah!” Dandara springs up. “Where’s my tail? And about that thing I wanted to show you—meet me after.”

I skid in front of the barn doors. “No!”

“I promise I’ll be more careful.”

“That’s not it. I need to tell you—”

“Macaquinha!”

Mãe da Silva’s footsteps grow louder. She’s coming.

I seize Dandara’s hand and take off at a sprint.

“Agostinha! Are you crazy?”

Her heartbeat drums in my palm. I tighten my sweaty grip. “Today I am.”

We dart through the corners and crevices of the engenho, the plantation, bolting beneath rusted machines in the casa de máquinas, dodging dripping sugar jars in the casa de purgar. Around us, iron gears clank, wooden wheels rattle, aging furnaces sigh.

We dash past the moenda, teeming with overseers. The escravos who work the mill shudder with exhaustion, sweat salting their burned faces as they churn rattling metal grinders. If we’d been assigned here instead of the casa grande, the manor, then we’d be toiling beside them—but even escravas domésticas like us will be whipped if caught ignoring Mãe da Silva.

We roll behind an oxcart. “Where are you taking me?”

I crouch to peer around the corner. I admit: “No idea.”

Something chatters overhead. Atop the oxcart, a marmoset plucks at a sugarcane stalk until it splinters. It grinds the hard fibers in its jaws and bounces away.

Dandara lights up. “When in doubt, follow the monkeys.”

The creature bounds towards the river. We scamper after it, ducking into the shadows of the jatobá trees. The drought has sharpened the riverbank into a steep cliff, a sudden drop into a dying trickle of water. Dandara clambers down and reaches up. “I’ve got you!”

I creep to the ledge. “Are you sure?”

I edge my way down slowly, slowly, slowly.

“You’re doing fine,” she calls.

That is, until I notice the warm, sun-brushed glow of her cheeks from this angle—and my foot slips.

The world topples, and I’m falling, then she’s falling, and we crash and tumble and bounce and bump and scrape over weeds and rocks, the sky becoming the ground becoming dirt in my mouth. When we skid to a stop, Dandara lies on my stomach.

An overseer’s growl: “Did you hear something?”

I press a finger to Dandara’s lips as she presses a finger to mine: “Shh.” Our eyes meet.

The footsteps of a second overseer. “Someone spotted the macaquinha near the barn. All I hear is, ‘Extra cachaça to whoever nabs her first.’”

Both men retreat, but Dandara keeps her voice low. “And I can hear the blood rushing in your veins.” She presses an ear to my chest. “Is this how the ocean sounds?”

Of course not, I want to say. But there’s so much I want to say. Such as, I’ll take you to the ocean. One day. When we’re free.

When she raises her head, she’s so close that her breath tickles my lips. My mouth moves closer. I swallow.

The trouble with sacrifice…

What if I tell her, and she never looks at me again? Is the risk worth killing what we have now? In my home across the ocean, love took no solid shape, yet here, to kiss her would be called sin. And Dandara was raised here.

I roll her off of me. “Your sapatinho!”

“Pardon?” She smacks soil off her dress.

Coins dot the riverbank like dew on grass. Silver vintéms peek out from between red hibiscos, copper quartãos hide among lilac bromélias. We scramble to collect them before the glinting metal draws overseer eyes. I dust off her sapatinho, the makeshift purse she created from a baby bootie, so that she can funnel the coins inside. “Então, Dandara, what did you want to show me?”

“This is what I wanted to show you.” She cradles the sapatinho. A shy red tint rises to her ears. “I think… I think I’m nearly there.”

“Wait—”

“Yes.”

“Yes!” I snatch her waist, and I swing her around, and I fling her in the air. “Graças a Deus!”

Her feet kick. “Put me down!”

The coins clink as we twirl. “Dandara, that’s incredible! You’re incredible! I love—how incredible you are!”

“Shh!” But she’s laughing.

“Shh? Forget the overseers.” I cup her cheeks. “We can finally start imagining what freedom looks like.”

“We know what freedom looks like.” She weaves her fingers into mine. “It looks like a casa pequena. Having our own little house in the rainforest, as far away from this engenho as the moon is from the sun.”

“Exac—”

She wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t want to build a house with you if she knew how you felt.

She wouldn’t, wouldn’t, wouldn’t.

Dandara frowns. “Your face changed.”

“Mine? Ah.” I trace her bandages. “I just—I’m remembering how many years I lost worrying about your exhibitions. Every time you go up, I fear how you’ll come down. You’ve sacrificed so much.”

“We each play our part.” She drops my hand. “Speaking of which… Sargento Pereira is attending.”

Acid bubbles in my mouth. “Oh.”

“I hate to ask, but—“

“I’ll occupy him.” I cross my legs, flutter my lashes. “And he’ll leave with empty pockets.”

A shrill and distant cry: “Macaquinha!”

I smooth Dandara’s hair. “Rest your arm for a few more minutes. I’ll tell Mãe da Silva you’re in the casa grande, then while she’s checking the house you sneak in through the courtyard.”

I turn to leave, but she whirls me around. “There’s one more thing.”

“Anything.”

“I’ve heard rumors.“

About me? My tongue goes dry. “Say it.”

“Fortunato.”

I exhale. “The deluded revolucionário.”

“He’s been—well, he’s sharpening rocks again, and the last thing we need when we’re so close to freedom is for him to attack someone. Mãe da Silva’s friends won’t donate if they feel threatened.”

“I’ll take care of everything.”

“You always do.” She seals her words with a kiss to the inside of my wrist. I melt into sunlight.

Why did I ever want more? It’s better this way. It’s better if I never tell her, better if we keep our friendship just as it is.

Sacrifices aren’t worth the risk.

---

Pleasure the sergeant, calm the rebel. I join the escravas trooping into the sala do jantar, balancing a tray of brigadeiros as I scan the dining hall. Easy.

Of all the guests—slaveowners who breed and slaughter us like chickens; priests who swear that Deus wants them to; generals who massacre resistance—military men are the easiest to manipulate. Soldiers see escravas as spoils of war and they expect their spoils to spoil them in return. I despise it, but it’s child’s play.

Ting-ting! Mae da Silva strikes a bell. “Feliz Entrudo! I, mother of the faithful, welcome you to rejoice on this sacred holiday.”

Sparse applause.

Doors slam open.

“Hooh-hooh, ah-ah-ah!” Primeiro Sargento Pereira swaggers inside, beating his chest; an escravo trails him with a bowed head and a covered tray. “I learned that little tribal call in the jungles of Nordeste. African women are truly wild, rather like you in your younger days, Ana.”

Mãe da Silva flushes. Guests titter.

Sargento Pereira whisks the cloth off the tray. “And in memory of those days, a gift.”

A crystal decanter twinkles sunset pink, composed of glass so delicate a high note could leave cracks. Guests lower their masquerade masks for a closer look.

Sargento Pereira installs himself at the head of the table. “Sede.”

The other escravas pace backwards; they know where his hands wander. I swoop in to accept the decanter. “As you command, o Primeiro Sargento.”

Mãe da Silva prefers us to dilute the cachaça, so in the dispensa, the storeroom, I fill it to the brim instead. The tang of pure alcohol pricks my eyes.

“Oh! Joana-Vitória!” I tug an escrava’s sleeve as she passes. “Have you seen Fortunato?”

She glares.

She keeps walking.

I toss my braids over one shoulder. Well, then.

A gaggle of soldiers swarms Sargento Pereira by the time I return. “I pried that decanter from the twitching fingers of a guerreiro beast!” he bellows. “The African was ten years old but possessed the strength of a demon.”

I drop my voice to a low purr that only he can hear. “Minha nossa! Primeiro Sargento Pereira, is your generosity any match for your immense bravery?”

This cachaça is meant to be sipped, so he swigs. “Exceedingly so.”

I refill his glass. “Then I look forward to the macaquinha’s exhibition.”

A smirk distends his lips. “Ah, macaquinha, macaquinha! She’s especially lithe tonight, isn’t she, boys? As if she sprung out of the Amazônia this very morning. It reminds me of when I led my men into that jungle’s black folds…”

I shudder.

“Speaking of tonight’s entertainment”—Mãe da Silva stands—“excuse me.”

I monitor the courtyard through the window. Outside, Dandara balances on a high rope. She twirls once, extends a leg, twirls again. Beams.

But everything changes once Mãe da Silva tugs her down. As they speak, Dandara shifts her back towards me, but I mark the sudden straightness of her spine. When she returns to the rope, she’s rubbing red eyes. What the devil did Mãe da Silva say?

“Be a dear.” Sargento Pereira elbows me. “And cut my pig.”

Instinct tells me to run to Dandara’s side, but experience tells me to stay put.

“I’d be honored.” I bend over his plate of leitão à bairrada and carve a knife into the suckling pig’s neck. Its pleading eyes are glassy with death, its mouth frozen into a toothy screa—“Oof!” The fork and knife clatter to the ground.

“I’m so sorry!” Joana-Vitória scrambles to pick them up. “I bumped you. I’m deeply sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“Really?” Her lip quivers as she wipes the fork on her dress. “Have I mentioned, Agostinha, that you are a creature of grace?”

“I, ah—well, do continue.”

She dashes off. I rub my chin. Has she fallen for me? Well, it’s to be expected. No wonder she was so cold earlier; she was nervous. Ha. I’ve turned the sergeant’s head, I’ve turned Joana-Vitória’s head, so why can’t I turn Dandara’s—wait, where’s the knife?

I duck under the table. I frisk my own pockets. Gone.

“Something amiss, escrava?”

“Of course not, Segundo Sargento Pereira. Let me attend to your glass.”

Diacho! Knives are a nightmare to replace. Ever since escravos started building armed communes, Mãe da Silva stores them under lock and key. This evening is becoming a headache.

In the meantime, I keep the sergeant talking. “Então, Primeiro Sargento Pereira, is it true you’ve never lost a man?”

“I have now!” He slams the table. The glasses jump. “Damn Palmares!”

“Now you’ve done it,” a priest mutters.

“Those savages ambushed me!”

“They sound barbaric,” I say quickly. I stroke small circles along his neck where the other soldiers can’t see. The motion makes him unclench. For now.

“Were you were ambushed?” The priest saws the leg from his suckling pig. “Or were you caught fleeing while you abandoned your men to die?”

Out of the corner of my eye—a dark flash. I snap around.

“Monkeys play dirty.” Sargento Pereira starts to stand until I touch his back.

Near the door, another glint. This time, silver.

I curtsy. “Excuse me, Sargento.”

In the corridor, I catch the shadow flitting past the dispensa. “Fortunato!”

I pin him to the wall. Fortunato’s arm snaps up—the knife glints—he could whip the blade across my throat.

“Oh! It’s you.” He laughs.

“I’ll murder Joana-Vitória.” I confiscate the knife. “If you hurt anyone, Mãe da Silva will hang all of us. Do you understand?”

“Entendí.” He delivers a mock solute. “But may I ask a question?”

I nod.

“Do you care about Dandara?”

“I—what? I—lower your voice!” I shout. “Of course I do.”

Yelling bursts from inside the sala do jantar.

“Are you a coward, Pereira?”

“By all means, drop your crucifix and find out!”

Fortunato pinches my chin and swivels my attention back to him. “Then why do you let her perform when it could kill her?”

“We’ll purchase our way off the engenho soon.”

Fortunato snorts. “Do you honestly imagine da Silva will relinquish her prized macaquinha? Her sacrificial little monkey?”

In the sala, wood scrapes, clatters—someone’s overturned a chair. A woman shrieks, “Keep them apart!” Glass shatters.

I wheel around. “I have to go.”

“Agostinha.” His breath chills my neck. “We both know that Dandara is headed for an unmarked grave.”

I’d like to prove that’s not true. But what did she tell Dandara that made her cry?

“I can save her life, Agostinha.”

“I…” I shiver. “Let’s talk about this later?”

He strolls off. “Later, I’ll be gone.”

When I return to the sala, the sergeant and the priest have knotted themselves together, flinging fists. Mãe da Silva shouts, “Senhores, calm down!”

“No, no, no!” I rush forward. I was supposed to keep the sergeant happy. It’s okay, I can salvage this. Perhaps. A furtive touch, several rounds of cachaça, and I can goad him into donating at least a quartão.

So Dandara can break her neck for a few copper coins?

I stop short.

Bawk!

“Oi, come back!” Joana-Vitória darts past, chasing a speckled rooster. She scoops it up by the legs as it flaps wildly for its life. “Let’s get you into your pot.”

Am I being too naive?

“Fortunato!”

He’s pocketing food scraps when I charge into the dispensa. I clamp his shoulder. “Speak fast.”

“Ah!” He jerks. Where I touched him, his shirt darkens with blood.

I startle. “Did I—”

“My plan,” he says, waving it off with a grimace, “begins tonight.”

“Your plan for Dandara?”

“For everyone.” Fortunato crouches between two barrels as escravas rifle through nearby shelves. “Because I’m escaping to join Palmares! You heard the soldiers. Escravos are waging war, and they’re winning. With a few more fighters, Palmares could end slavery within a month, two at the most. Come with me. Become guerreiras. Warriors.”

I gape.

“Say something,” he says.

“I will kill you.”

“Around so many witnesses?”

“That’s your plan?” I knot my fingers through my hair. “You won’t make it off the engenho. Dogs will hunt you down if overseers don’t shoot you first. If you do reach the river, you’ll drown. If you reach the forest, you’ll be eaten by jaguars. If you reach the caatinga, you’ll choke in a desert sandstorm. And if—if!—by some miracle you reach Palmares, Portuguese soldiers like Pereira will skin you from scalp to sole.”

“Now you see why I needed that knife.” He cocks his head. “Wait, I thought you supported Palmares.”

“I do! But I’m sacrificing a chicken, I’m not going there.”

“Look, Agostinha, for years I tried to earn my freedom through good behavior. Do you know where it got me?” He unbuttons his shirt: Raw scarlet stripes stretch from shoulder to spine. “Liberation only comes when you seize it yourself. ”

“I won’t risk Dandara’s life for a platitude.”

He shrugs his shirt back on. “Then what about your life?” He flicks my medicine pouch. “You could heal a lot of guerreiros.”

“You’re mad.” I shift the pouch to my other hip. “Besides, if Palmares will win within two months, they don’t need me.”

“If everyone thinks that way, Palmares will lose.”

“If Palmares loses, me dying in battle won’t help Dandara.”

“Pelo contrário, your death would help more than your life,” he says. “With you gone, suddenly freedom becomes half as expensive.”

It’s an awful truth. But it’s the truth.

“After all these years, you still can’t tell her how you feel.” He scratches dried blood off his hand. “Perhaps this is how you show it.”

I attempt to swallow, but my throat closes up.

In the distance: “Step aside!”

I stagger back to the sala do jantar just as Sargento Pereira storms out, clutching his nose. What happened? No!

I jog at his heels. “Primeiro Sargento, please stay for Mãe da Silva’s sake. It’s a sacred holiday.”

He shoves past. “Move, escrava.”

I almost shout, “Wait!” but he might shoot me for insubordination. All I can do once I reach the courtyard is hang my head. A cold breeze ripples the grass.

My skin prickles: Behind me, Dandara crouches underneath the hulking mogno tree with her legs pulled to her chest. Her face folds in disappointment.

One thing. She asked one thing, and I failed. She turns away.

---

Fool, fool, fool. I ladle guarapa and squeeze limes as if it’s the only task in the world, anything to avoid Dandara’s gaze. Near the tree, guests deposit coins into pouches connected by a string. The pouches look light. If the sergeant were here, he’d fatten them with gold dobrãos.

Mãe da Silva claps. “Despite the…excitement of earlier, we must celebrate. Deus has trusted me to civilize the savages of these dark lands, yet like many of you, I often wake up doubting my impact. In those moments, my macaquinha reminds me that without my guidance, she—like all escravos—would revert to barbarism.”

Dandara adjusts her cloth monkey ears, balancing on the rope connecting the tree to the casa grande. The priest spins the pouches above his head like a boleadeira until they soar into the tree, where they wrap around the topmost branches. Oh no. Although Dandara’s small, those branches are twigs. Please don’t break.

Ting-ting!

Dandara sprints along the rope so fast her feet flicker. She leaps off, somersaults midair and catches a low branch in a single smooth motion. In the same breath, she hooks her legs around the branch and flips upside down, beating her chest.

Beside me, a guest halts her cup halfway to her mouth. “Minha nossa, the macaquinha is something after all.”

“Perhaps da Silva knows her way around discipline,” says the man beside her. Mãe da Silva beams. This is what she lives for.

And Dandara, she lives for the trees. She springs to another branch and arcs her legs into a handstand. Maybe she could be a guerreira.

Where did that thought come from?

Guests crane their necks as Dandara monkey-swings higher and higher, from branch to branch to branch, on the back of the wind. The pouches dangle just above her head. She extends an arm.

Click-bang!

Metal splits the air.

We all hit the ground. I slap my hands over my ears. Someone shrieks. Gunpowder billows.

“Dandara!” I bolt upright. She’s wrapped herself around a branch, eyes squeezed shut like a trembling baby animal.

Primeiro Sargento Pereira struts forward, reloading his musket. “Am I still a coward?” Plaster covers his nose.

Mãe da Silva edges towards him. “No one believed that.”

The sergeant rams a musket ball down the muzzle. “I’d like to dispel all doubts.”

He aims straight at Dandara.

“No!” I cry.

The second blast tears the branch like a black powder bomb.

Splinters explode.

She screams.

Smoke whips my eyes.

I smell burnt paper.

Taste sulfur.

Hear wood snap.

Through the haze, I see Dandara scrambling to grasp another branch.

Missing.

Her hand swiping empty air.

Her eyes flying open. Her body contorting into a tumble.

“Dandara!”

She crashes down.

Down.

Down.

Her head slams into one branch.

Another lashes her neck.

Her arms go limp.

“Dandara!”

Ground.

---

When I was a child, I loved tending the eiyele funfun but I couldn’t watch the sacrifice. My mother promised their lives were an offering for something greater, yet after we ate the cooked pigeon meat I swore I tasted feathers.

I trace Dandara’s weeping wound. It opens like a fleshy smile across her neck, and only my bandages seem to keep her head attached. I tuck the sapatinho into her fist.

Through the curtain separating this makeshift infirmary from the kitchens, I hear dishes clink and escravos chug leftover cachaça, smell cinnamon soap and sun-rotting pork. However, as Mãe da Silva repeated, Dandara is blessed, because she’d have flung any other escrava into an unmarked grave.

Clammy fingers brush my wrist.

“You’re awake!” I mop her forehead.

She blinks blearily. “I…”

“Shh.”

“I’m sorry…”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” I dip the rag in fresh water and run it over her cheeks. “We’ll be rid of this engenho soon.”

“Yes.” Light comes to her eyes. It’s dim, but it’s light. “Only a few more years.”

My toes curl. “What?”

Dandara’s smile flickers. She fidgets with the sapatinho. “I showed Mãe da Silva, and she said a few more years.”

The room plunges into darkness.

Sacrificial little monkey.

Her eyes are foggy, her pupils darting. She won’t survive three years.

“I…” I wring the rag and dunk it and wring it again. “I can’t let you do this anymore.”

“Pardon?”

“What if…” I say slowly. “What if perhaps, perhaps, we joined Palmares?”

She manages to sit up. “Y-you’ve lost your mind. At least my exhibitions only kill one of us.”

“So you admit they’re killing you.”

“You won’t even make it off the engenho. The second you run, overseers will—”

“Shoot me.”

“Then you’ll—”

“Drown.”

“And—”

“Jaguars, sandstorms, soldiers.” I pass her a cup of camomila. “For the pain.”

She glowers into the tea. “The risk isn’t worth it.”

I lower myself onto the mat beside her. “Dandara, you don’t know the agony of watching the person you love kill themselves.”

“Of course I do. I see the engenho eat you alive, but that doesn’t change the fact that—”

“Do you know the love I mean?”

Dandara blinks. After a long time, she lifts the camomila to her lips and winces as she sips.

“If you do care for me,” she says finally, “then don’t mention Palmares again. No running, no armies. Just you and I in our casa pequena. Claro?”

When I don’t respond, her nails trail clumsy lightning bolts up my thigh. She gives me a look, a look that unsettles, biting her bruised lip and lowering her lashes. This isn’t her, and yet it feels familiar. Why?

It’s the same one I give Primeiro Sargento Pereira.

I pull away. “You almost died today.”

She darkens. “I’m fine, Agostinha.”

To prove it, she stumbles into the kitchen with halting, crooked steps. The other escravos fall silent. She cleans as if they don’t exist, scraping unfinished pig carcasses into a feeding trough. But by the time she lifts a second stack of dishes, the bandages around her neck are thick with blood. She sways on her feet.

“Dandara,” I say, “please lie down.”

“I can do it.” Her knees knock.

I open my arms.

For a moment, she bear-hugs the plates as if she’ll never let them go. But the next, her eyes roll into her head. She staggers sideways, grabs a table, and the entire wooden structure collapses.

Crash!

My stomach drops.

“Dandara, that was…”

“I know.”

No, no, no. We scramble to salvage the crystal shards. My mind goes blank. The glass bites my palm.

Only Mãe da Silva’s cold shadow forces us to raise our heads. Her blue eyes reflect black.

I manage a curtsy. “Perdão, Mãe da Silva. Your decanter fell when I bumped the table.”

Dandara steps forward, but I tread on her foot to keep her quiet.

Mãe da Silva towers over me. “Destroying property?”

Behind her, the head overseer fingers his whip. “Didn’t we hear that one escrava was overly familiar with Pereira? Twenty lashes is a good start.”

I swallow. “Yes, Mãe—”

“Don’t!”

“Dandara!” I hiss.

Dandara wedges herself between us. “D-don’t whip Agostinha. I broke it.”

Mãe da Silva halts. “You?”

“Accidentally.”

“I see.” The woman examines a shard, tosses it back. “Nevertheless.” She extends her hand.

Dandara frowns.

Mãe da Silva raises her eyebrows.

Slow horror creeps across Dandara’s face. “You don’t mean…”

It hits me next. “Mãe da Silva, that’s unreasonable!”

Mãe da Silva plucks the sapatinho straight from Dandara’s pocket. “This might pay for a new decanter.” I could swear she’s biting a smile as she vanishes up the stairs.

Dandara’s eyes flash. Her fists tighten. The macaquinha is ready to bury a blade in Mãe da Silva’s neck, and I will not stop her. But all moments pass, and eventually her shoulders droop. She stares into some unseen distance with sunken, sallow eyes. Then she strains a smile. “I’ll start over.”

“And what happens when Mãe da Silva confiscates it again? What if she never lets you leave? ”

“I don’t know!” Dandara snaps. “Não sei, all right? But we can’t run to Palmares, because I can’t lose you. So can we please, please stop talking about the future?”

I kneel, and she follows. “You’re right, Dandara. Let’s stay in today.”

She slumps against me. I bury my nose in her hair. And I slip a shard of the decanter into my medicine pouch.

Maybe this is how you show it.

---

Shadows creep along the ceiling. I count her sleeping breaths and wish I could stretch this moment into forever. “Is there really no other way?”

The chicken opens a single groggy eye, fluffing her feathers.

I brush my fingers along Dandara’s jaw, tracing the map of her skin. She burrows herself into my hand, resting her cheek on my palm.

Tell her.

“Dandara.”

The next time I see you, I’ll swing you on my shoulders and whisk you off this engenho. The next time I see you, we will both be free. And if I don’t return, build the house we imagined.

I withdraw slowly, so as not to wake her.

“Hmm?” Dandara murmurs, shifting.

I freeze. What am I doing? Can I really leave? What if I’m making a mistake?

Clouds shift. Moonlight soaks into her scarlet bandages.

This is why I have to go.

I start to stand when Dandara’s arms sleepily ring my neck. She cups my cheek and tugs me in and kisses the corner of my mouth. Camomila tea wafts faintly on her breath, for the pain. I pull away.

Her arms fall as she drops back to sleep.

I scoop up the chicken and climb onto the windowsill. Just outside, perched in the mogno tree, a marmoset chatters as it gnaws on sugarcane. It cocks its head. I cock mine. It leaps to the ground and scampers across the engenho.

When in doubt…

I take one final look at Dandara.

Then I follow.

---

Show Notes

This quarter’s fiction episode presents “Follow the Monkey” by Jamie McGhee, narrated by Cláudia Cruz Machado.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Jamie McGhee Online

• Website: jamie-mcghee.com

Links to Cláudia Cruz Machado Online

• Itch.io: clawofalltrades
• Email: clawofalltrades@gmail.com
• Instagram: @ccmenglish

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 292 - On the Shelf for August 2024 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2024/08/03 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for August 2024.

Thank goodness for pre-scheduled podcasts, because when this show is going live—assuming nothing untoward happens in the mean time—I am in Iceland, having a brief stopover on my way to Scotland, where I’ll be attending the World Science Fiction Convention and then doing a couple weeks of sightseeing. I hope to have all sorts of fun tidbits to report in next month’s On the Shelf. I’ll be doing at least one interview for the podcast at the convention. And my sightseeing will include doing some deep-background location research for a couple different fiction projects, plus I’m hoping to make a sort of pilgrimage to Halifax to visit Shibden Hall. The last time I traveled for an entire month like this was back in 1999, so we’ll see what my stamina is like a quarter century later.

Barring unexpected complications (and I keep mentioning that, because my life has had a few too many unexpected complications lately) I’ll also have pre-scheduled this month’s essay—the first half of an “our f/favorite tropes” episode on theater and actresses in historic romance. Then when I get home at the end of the month, assuming everything happens on schedule, I’ll have a sound file from one of my narrators waiting for me and we’ll have another fiction episode to round out August. As you may have noticed, the episode with Elizabeth Birdsall’s “The Font of Liberty” should have been scheduled in June, but things worked out to move it a month later and I took the opportunity to have a brief break from writing new episodes and put it in the essay slot. But now we should be back on the default schedule of posting fiction on 5th Saturdays.

I’ve been having my regular mid-year panic attack about whether I’m doing the fiction series again next year. When I was freaking out a little about finding narrators, I was really dithering. And since next year is my retirement year, I’m going to need to take a hard look at the finances of the fiction series. But at the moment I’m still defaulting to doing it another year.

Publications on the Blog

The blog has seen a lot of new material this past month, all focused on research for the tropes double-feature about actresses and theater. I blogged a collection entitled Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, which contained 14 articles. The contents were of variable relevance to my purposes, but several were quite valuable on the subject of what women were doing on stage at various times and locations, especially when one expands the question beyond professional paid acting companies.

Next was a dissertation rather than a published work: The Salon and the Stage: Women and Theatre in Seventeenth-century France by Elizabeth Grist. Only a few bits focused on women participating in theater, but those bits were quite interesting.

Michael Shapiro’s Gender in Play on the Shakesperaean Stage: Boy Heroines and Female Pages was predictably more about the gender dynamics of having male actors play female roles—including female characters then disguising themselves as men—than about women in theatrical professions. But the book opens with a chapter on the social context of women cross-dressing in actual life, which is more generally relevant to the Project.

Finally, I have a somewhat scanty summary of Sophie Tomlinson’s Women on Stage in Stuart Drama, which is a socio-political history of the female presence in dramatic works, though not always about women performers. And that wraps up my deep-focus series on theater history. I probably won’t blog any new publications read in August because I’ll be traveling for the whole month, but I hope my momentum picks up again when I get back. It feels good to be blogging this much again.

Book Shopping!

To balance that out, I didn’t pick up any new research books this month, but I suspect maybe next month will make up for that.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

New fiction also seems a bit sparse this month. I have one correction to last month’s listings. I had Tasha Suri’s The Lotus Empire as a July book, which was the schedule when I first put it in my spreadsheet. But evidently publication was pushed back to November, so I’ll try to remember to mention it again then. There’s also one August book that I’m saving for next month, in part because the publisher doesn’t have a link up yet, and in part because I’m planning to interview the author for the September show. That leaves us with a half dozen items for this month, less than our usual haul.

First up is a two-fer, because the release of the second book in a series brought the first one to my attention as well. Rachel Ford’s Meredith and Alec Thatch Mystery series is a bit easy to overlook as sapphic fiction because it involves a closeted couple with a “female husband” marriage in 1920s England. The first volume, Murder by Multiples came out last year and is available for free if you sign up for the author’s newsletter.

Quiet Fenwood-On-Sea is the perfect place for an heiress with secrets to hide. Or a killer.

Beautiful heiress Meredith Thatch married for love, and scandalized her community in the process. But her neighbors don't know the half of it. These days, she and spouse Alec keep a low profile, managing her hospital for recovering soldiers and invalids - and growing the finest roses in the county.

But when the most despised landowner in the area winds up dead shortly after feuding with the hospital, the finger of suspicion turns on the couple. And that's only the first murder.

With a Scotland Yard inspector asking uncomfortable questions and a killer on the loose, they need to solve the crime sooner rather than later. But how can they find a killer when there are suspects everywhere they turn, and motives all over the place?

The second book in the series, Murder by Rote, is the new release that caught my attention.

Aunt Anne’s house parties are to die for. Sometimes, literally.

When heiress Meredith Thatch accepted an invitation to a house party on her aunt’s country estate, she expected an exciting weekend for herself and partner Alec.

The worst storm in decades wasn’t in the cards, though. Neither was murder. Then a guest winds up dead in suspicious circumstances – and the only road in the area washes out.

Trapped in the manor, with every guest a possible suspect – and everyone harboring secrets – Meredith and Alec race to find the murderer.

Before their own secret comes out – or the killer strikes again.

Next up we have what looks like a short story, or maybe a novelette, Shadow of the Moon by T. Lona.

Eleanor Wren, a young woman of privilege in Victorian England, finds herself constrained by societal expectations and her father's ambitions. While her father arranges her marriage to Edward Lancaster, Eleanor secretly harbors feelings for her friend Lydia Blackwood. As Eleanor navigates the complex social landscape, she uncovers a hidden family secret that challenges everything she knows about her heritage. With Lydia's support, Eleanor must decide between following her heart and conforming to society's expectations.

The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis from Atria Books is set in a mythological Greece, with direct participation of the gods. I waver a bit on whether stories like this can be shoehorned into the historic fantasy category, as opposed to pure fantasy, but since almost all sapphic romances set in ancient Greece have mythic elements I’d be eliminating the category entirely if I had strict limits.

Young, headstrong Psyche has captured the eyes of every suitor in town and far beyond with her tempestuous beauty, which has made her irresistible as a woman yet undesirable as a wife. Secretly, she longs for a life away from the expectations and demands of men. When her father realizes that the future of his family and town will be forever cursed unless he appeases an enraged Aphrodite, he follows the orders of the Oracle, tying Psyche to a rock to be ravaged by a monstrous husband. And yet a monster never arrives.

When Eros, nonbinary deity of desire, sees Psyche, she cannot fulfill her promise to her mother Aphrodite to destroy the mortal young woman. Instead, Eros devises a plan to sweep Psyche away to an idyllic palace, hidden from the prying eyes of Aphrodite, Zeus, and the outside world. There, against the dire dictates of Olympus, Eros and Psyche fall in love. Each night, Eros visits Psyche under the cover of impenetrable darkness, where they both experience untold passion and love. But each morning, Eros flies away before light comes to break the spell of the palace that keeps them safe.

Before long, Psyche’s nights spent in pleasure turn to days filled with doubts, as she grapples with the cost of secrecy and the complexities of freedom and desire. Restless and spurred by her sisters to reveal Eros’s true nature, she breaks her trust and forces a reckoning that tests them both—and transforms the very heavens.

I thought rather hard about including the next title—also set in classical Greece—for entirely different reasons. And this is going to sound a little harsh. I don’t normally filter books for inclusion in the podcast based on writing quality. Because such a large proportion of sapphic historicals are published independently, and because my goal is the support and encouragement of the field regardless of the author’s background, I consider my job to be the simple presentation of information. But sometimes I do want to put a caveat on a listing, either because I’m concerned about how it handles a sensitive topic, or for some other reason. In the case of Teleios: Flaw, is Perfect by Asvoria K., when I looked at advance reviews to confirm that the book has sapphic content, the reviews were in agreement that the writing has some serious quality issues. The author’s website notes that English is not her first language, which may go some way to explaining this. So if the cover copy strikes your interest, you may well enjoy the story, but be aware of what you’re getting.

In the dusk of Hellas, the shadow of Rome began to stretch its dominance. Arete of Syracuse had lost her father and her beloved city. Following his last wish, Arete embarked on her odyssey to stop the strange malevolent forces behind which controlled the Roman Emperor Nero.

Guided by a determination in her heart, Arete traveled to the fabled city of Oraiapolis to find a mysterious Teleios, the perfect woman who was rumoured to be the living Aphrodite.

Along her journey traveling through different villages and cities, she fought against ferocious creatures and forged unbreakable bonds with a diverse cadre of companions, each carrying the weight of their own life in their hearts.

What will transpire throughout their perilous journey that will shape their destinies? And what evil forces would seek to capture the Teleios for their own sinister ends?

The Roaring Twenties continue to be a popular setting for historic romance. Check out: Craze by Margaret Vandenburg from Jaded Ibis Press.

Fresh off the boat from Roaring Twenties Paris, Henrietta "Henri" Adams lands in New York in the midst of the Queer Craze that is taking the city by storm. An art critic by day and lady lover by night, she ventures into the clandestine worlds of speakeasies and drag balls, which free her from the tyranny of the gender binary. Fun-loving slummers crash the party, flocking to see queer performers at the Astor Hotel and the Cotton Club. Broadway stars rub elbows with Harlem Renaissance luminaries at the Hamilton Lodge Masquerade Ball. But the revelry can't last forever. Faced with Depression-era crackdowns, Henri calculates the risk of fighting back, prompting a decision with far-reaching consequences.

For those looking for a book aimed at somewhat younger readers—or maybe you like YA books yourself--Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher from Bloomsbury Children's Books takes on the Robin Hood legend, with a twist.

‘You aren’t merry,’ said Clem to her captor. ‘And you aren’t all men. So there’s been some marketing confusion somewhere along the line.’

Mariel, a newly blooded and perpetually grumpy captain of the Merry Men, is desperate to live up to the legacy of her grandfather, the legendary Robin Hood. Clem, a too-perky backwoods healer known for her new-fangled cures, just wants to help people.

When Mariel's ramshackle band of bandits kidnap Clem as retribution for her guardian helping the Sheriff of Nottingham, all seems to be going (sort of) to plan … until Jack Hartley, Mariel’s father and Commander of the Merry Men, is captured in a deadly ambush. Determined to prove herself, Mariel sets out to get him back – with her annoyingly cheerful kidnappee in tow.

But the wood is at war. Many believe the Merry Men are no longer on the right side of history. Watching Clem tend the party’s wounds and crack relentlessly terrible jokes, Mariel begins to doubt the noble cause to which she has devoted her life. As the two of them grow closer, forced by circumstances to share a single horse and bed, one thing is clear. They must prepare to fight for their lives and for those of everyone they’ve sworn to protect.

Other Books of Interest

I’ve put one title in the “other books of interest” category because, despite being tagged as sapphic on the website where I spotted it, I can’t figure out the details from the cover copy. This is: Accidental Darlings by Crystal Jeans from The Borough Press.

In the night, I slept with my head under a shawl, listening to the ceaseless low groans of the house, telling myself that my mother would never have sent me to live with a murderer or a witch or a Miss Havisham…

1924.

When Anastasia’s beloved mother dies, she has no choice but to go to rural Skimpole and move in with ‘the Aunt’ – too fearsome for a first name, an outcast from the village who lives in a dilapidated mansion with two servants and an unruly pack of dogs.

The many mysteries of Skimpole are irresistible: how did Anastasia’s father really die? Who wrote the extremely raunchy love letters she has found in the Aunt’s bedroom, signed ‘Big Willy’? And why does everyone in the village hate the Aunt so much?

When some of the Aunt’s friends from her youth arrive at the house, wreathed in cigarette smoke and an air of debauchery, Anastasia may be closer to finding answers – but the truth she was so desperate to uncover will turn her entire world upside down…

What Am I Reading?

And what have I been reading in the last month? It’s been all audiobooks, as is often the case, in part because I’ve been doing so much print reading for the blog.

I rather enjoyed A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence in Jess Everlee’s “Lucky Lovers of London” series. It’s a Victorian-era sapphic romance that’s part of a loosely-braided series where the other titles feature gay male romances. I hope it’s ok to say that I liked this more than I expected to—in part because I’m coming out of a run of historic romances that rather fell down on the historic side. But Everlee sets up a solidly believable context for her ill-matched lovers, including a glimpse of what parts of society might find same-sex couples well within the non-conformity they’re happy to accommodate. The miscommunications and anxieties that put stumbling blocks in the path to happiness are all plausible

There was a new release in the “Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney” historic mystery series, featuring the neurodivergent son of Darcy and Lizzie and the adventure-seeking daughter of the protagonists of Northanger Abbey. In Claudia Gray’s The Perils of Lady Catherine De Bourgh, the two young sleuths are summoned to Rosings Park to figure out who seems to be trying to kill Lady Catherine. The mystery plot was slightly flawed in that I quickly figured out whodunnit based on which character the protagonists were obviously overlooking in their considerations—although the theme of being overlooked and ignored aligned with the motive. But we get further slow progress of the budding romance between Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney at a believable and satisfactory pace that ensures the series is likely to continue for further developments.

And finally I went on a deliberate hunt to fill in the gaps in my K.J. Charles collection and listened to Unfit to Print, a second-chance romance overlaying a mystery involving the Victorian pornography industry, with a delightfully diverse cast. The only minor disappointment was how abruptly the mystery plot was resolved at the end, with almost no input from the protagonists. A happy ending, but not an entirely satisfying one in terms of pacing.

For next month, we’ll see what effects travel has on my reading. Sometimes I find myself ripping through things quickly on planes and trains, and sometimes I’m so busy having fun I forget to read.

Author Guest

To finish up, we have an author guest this month! I’m talking to Melissa Addey, a prolific author of historical fiction.

(An interview transcript will be added when available.)

Show Notes

Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

• Your host’s travels in August
• Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
  • Brown, Pamela Allen & Peter Parolin (eds). 2005. Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
  • Grist, Elizabeth Rosalind. 2001. The Salon and the Stage: Women and Theatre in Seventeenth-century France. Dissertation.
  • Shapiro, Michael. 1994. Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines and Female Pages. Ann Arbor. (Chapter 1: A Brief Social History of Female Cross-Dressing)
  • Tomlinson, Sophie. 2009. Women on Stage in Stuart Drama. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-81111-8
• Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
  • Murder by Multiples (Meredith and Alec Thatch Mystery #1) by Rachel Ford
  • Murder by Rote (Meredith and Alec Thatch Mystery #2) by Rachel Ford
  • Shadow of the Moon by T. Lona
  • The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis
  • Teleios: Flaw, is Perfect by Asvoria K.
  • Craze by Margaret Vandenburg
  • Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher
• Other Titles of Interest
  • Accidental Darlings by Crystal Jeans
• What I’ve been consuming
  • A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence by Jess Everlee
  • The Perils of Lady Catherine De Bourgh by Claudia Gray
  • Unfit to Print by K.J. Charles
• This month we interview Melissa Addey and talk about:
  • Her several historical fiction series
  • Her sapphic historical romance set in 18th c China
  • Balancing research and invention
  • Sign up for Melissa’s readers’ group to get a free copy of The Consorts

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Melissa Addey Online

• Website: MelissaAddey.com

Although appended to a book discussing theatrical cross-dressing, this catalog presents a contrast in how actual women (of the lower classes) were treated when found or accused of cross-dressing.