Issue Number 1017 | A Girl's Own Story | Advocate.com A Girl's Own Story  |  | Advocate.com

Advocate.com health Channel
||  SPECTATOR  ||
 
A Girl's Own Story
Teresa Stores’s third novel takes us back to the 1960s, where a young lesbian in Jacksonville, Fla., navigates religion, family, and politics.
From The Advocate  October 21, 2008
A Girl's Own Story

Coming-of-age stories will always retain appeal for gay people. They remind us that we can emerge whole from family dysfunction -- even when queerness is seen as an unforgivable sin -- and that the unique unhappiness of other families can be fascinating.

Big New York publishing houses aim most of these types of novels at the teen market. So it’s refreshing to find that Backslide, by Teresa Stores, was written for adults. Don’t let the uninspired brown-and-red cover deceive you: The story, published by indie press Spinsters Ink, illustrates in living color what it was like to grow up as a Southern Baptist in the ’60s, navigating the bumpy road from loneliness and sexual denial to self-assurance.

The outlines of Virge Young’s fictional journey -- from an earnest young churchgoer smothered in polyester and panty hose to a spiky blond lesbian mother who defends her lifestyle on national TV -- are both familiar and idealized. But it’s the depth of Stores’s characterizations of the protagonist’s friends and family that give Backslide its resonance.

Told largely in flashback, the book centers on Virge’s youth in Jacksonville, Fla., in a working-class family, where she tries -- and fails -- to make herself invisible to her iron-fisted father. When Virge brings home her best friend, Ricki Ann, her father is enraged by the girl’s flirty blue eye shadow and tight “Snoopy for President” T-shirt, which he deems “unpatriotic.” But those charms aren’t lost on Virge, who agrees to practice kissing with Ricki Ann because they’re about to enter junior high and “should be all ready.” It’s a familiar scenario, yet full of yearning that becomes even more palpable after Ricki Ann drops Virge for more popular friends the following school year. It’s to Stores’s credit that Ricki Ann remains as vivid and shrewd a foe as she was a friend.  

Page: 1 | 2

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Be the first to comment on this story.

Back to top

Submit a comment for this story:

*Type your comment here (Required, 1000 characters max.):

*Name (Required): 

*Hometown (Required): 

*E-mail address: (Required, but will not be displayed)

Is this comment for publication? 
Yes   No

Daytime phone number: (Required for print publication only and will not be displayed)

Please enter the words you see in the box, in order and separated by a space. Doing so helps prevent automated programs from abusing this service.

  

If you would like to submit a comment for posting, please fill out the form above. 

All comments submitted via this form are subject to posting or publication. (To send a private letter to an Advocate editor or writer, please use the e-mail button at the top of the page, or use snail mail.) If you would like your comment considered for publication in The Advocate magazine, please include your full name, your city of residence, and a phone number where you can be reached during business hours so that we can confirm your identity. Your e-mail address and telephone number are strictly confidential and will not be shared or used for any purpose other than to contact you about your comment.

Comments that do not concern specific articles in The Advocate or on Advocate.com will not be posted or published. See the Contact page for sending comments for reasons other than responding to Advocate editorial and news stories.

Please note that comments sent by fax or snail mail are unlikely to be posted, although they will be considered for publication along with all letters received via e-mail or via this Web page. Comments that chiefly concern Advocate.com content will be considered for posting only on the Web site. The Advocate reserves the right to edit submitted comments for grammar, spelling, obscenities, or libel; we will, however, do our best to preserve the original comment's style and intent. Comments considered for publication in The Advocate magazine may also be edited for length.