Book review: Her Neighbor's Wife

[rocky41_7]

Title: Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire within Marriage
Author: Lauren Jae Gutterman
Genre: Nonfiction, sociology

I follow the queer-reads-bracket on tumblr and this summer they did a poll bracket of queer nonfiction, which gave me the opportunity to add quite a few queer nonfiction reads to my TBR. Last night I finished the first of these, which was Her Neighbor’s Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire within Marriage by Lauren Jae Gutterman.

First, to dispel any fears of polysexual erasure—the book is not exclusive of bisexual women, but more on that below.

This book is an exploration of a history of female same-sex desire within seemingly-heterosexual marriages in America. It begins in the 40s and 50s and uses interviews, correspondence, and queer literature of the time to chronicle this sociological phenomenon.

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