What They Won’t Do

April 2011

Us lesbians, we are used to watching movies or TV shows, or to reading books and magazines which feature only straight people, with the random gay man appearing from time to time. We have been doing so forever, and our enthusiasm when some woman loving is suggested is so great that we immediately become the biggest fans of the film or novel in question. Years of experience have trained us well to read between the lines, finding Sapphic clues everywhere. Sometimes we are right, like when many of us fell in love with Idgie, the tomboy on Fried Green Tomatoes, brilliantly played by Mary Stuart Masterson, and then the book (which we all bought and gave to our girlfriends on their birthdays) confirmed that what is only an insinuation in the film, is a beautiful love story between two women in the novel by Fannie Flagg. Sometimes we are wrong, like when we were convinced that Ani DiFranco was into girls and then she got married to that guy from her band and had a baby with him. Ah, why didn’t we stick to the reliable Indigo Girls?

Like I said, we are used to immersing ourselves in straight stories, whereas heterosexual women haven’t had the same experience. That is why I should be more understanding if my straight friends never choose the latest lesbian film when they go to the movies, if they never join me and my bowl of popcorn in watching reruns of The L Word (do you know how many times I’ve watched Friends with them, clapping happily when Ross and Rachel end up together?), if they never seem to listen to my recommendations when I tell them to read a book whose main character is a lesbian, and if they only care about lesbian singers when it is cool to like them. I should give them a break, but I’m out of breaks. I am also tired of their lack of interest toward any other love culture that is not the straight one. This may sound too generalizing; of course there are heterosexual people who enter the realms of Lesboland, but I’m talking about my experience.

This is why I’ve found the marketing of Jodie Picoult’s new novel both outrageous and hilarious at the same time. If you don’t know this author then you are not a straight, white, middle-aged woman from the United States. If that is the case, I’ll tell you that Picoult is an American writer of best-sellers whose books are a success all over the world. She always writes about controversial issues with which apparently perfect families have to deal with, like a school shooting or a terrible illness. Her novels have nail-biting trials, (heterosexual) romance and everything you would want to take to the beach during an idle summer morning.

When, on one of my trips to the bookstore, I saw there was a new Picoult novel titled Sing You Home, I read the book jacket out of curiosity for the subject she had chosen this time. It talked about a music therapist called Zoe Baxter whose “unexpected friendship slowly blossoms into love”. The cover featured a woman walking and carrying a guitar. I put the book back on the shelf and thought about it no more. A few days later, I discovered a post about Sing You Home on an LGBT literature blog and I was really surprised to learn that the “blossoming love” is between two women, Zoe and Vanessa, who get married and want to have a baby. For that, they use frozen zygotes previously created by Zoe and her former husband, Max who is now a born-again Christian gay basher. Supported by his fanatic church, Max sues Zoe and Vanessa. Cool story, isn’t it?

What is with the book jacket? Yes, Zoe is a music therapist and she carries a guitar to work every morning, but that is not really important in the story. Clearly, the purpose of not mentioning key words such as “lesbian”, “Christian” or “embryo” in the back cover, and instead talking about music in every sentence, is to not frighten away Jodie Picoult’s faithful readers. If they are a bit like my straight friends, they will not be very interested in the story of two women in love with each other who are trying to create a family. I am grateful to Jodie Picoult for breaking the heterosexual spell and writing about lesbians despite not being one. I am indignant at the fact that the plot had to be hidden in order for this book to make the best-sellers lists.

However, I also think it is very funny that all these Jodie Picoult’s fans are buying the book, eager for one of their favorite writer’s thrilling stories, only to find out that romance here is between two women. I am sure once they get sucked into the story they will want to keep on reading. Who knows? Maybe Jodie Picoult, with her best-selling power, has done more for visibility than a thousand gay pride marches.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if my straight friends read this article and started showing more interest in lesbian culture? It wouldn’t kill them to open their minds to new ways of relating, on the contrary, it would enrich their lives, as looking at the world through different lenses always does. But that won’t happen because this would mean they are reading a lesbian magazine. Their loss!