(Silver) Sapphic Pride!

As a queer of a particular age and hair-colour (what hair remains, that is), one of the things you can’t help but notice as you age is how people your age just sort of… vanish. That’s a problem far from solely found within the queer community (though my experience is the queer community often has an even harder time with accepting aging, gracefully or otherwise).

I once wrote a short story, “Here Be Dragons.” It gained the dubious honour of being my most rejected submission ever. I sent it to romance anthology after romance anthology, and while many times the editors replied that they enjoyed the story, it wasn’t accepted. Some were candid enough to admit it wasn’t about hot young gay men, which their audience would expect (ouch), but others said things about it being bittersweet or having the wrong tone or fit for the anthology (which I can totally understand). But the one thing that came up over and over again was the reality of it being about two older men, and thus… no thank you. So when I was putting together my own collection, I decided “Here Be Dragons” was going to finally see print, and that was that. (It’s included in Of Echoes Born.)

So, today for my Pride Month trek through some books I’ve loved, I thought I’d bring up two wonderful sapphic books I adored that have characters who aren’t twenty- (or even thirty-) somethings, but rather people much further on in their lives.

And, y’know, still queer.

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You know when you read a book and love it and wish you could immediately read it again for the first time (even though that’s impossible) and just sit there with that dazed that was magic derpy look on your face? Carol Rosenfeld’s The One That Got Away did that to me b/ack in 2016. So many adjectives for this book: charming, sly, moving, clever, honest-to-gods-witty, funny. All of those. More.

If the blurb sounds too simple, don’t worry – it’s not. Rosenfeld puts so much character into the players on this stage that you’ll be as smitten as I was with nearly everyone (and also ruthlessly enjoy not being smitten with those you dislike). I cheered for B.D. from almost the first page, and more than that, you want B.D., who has come out later in life, to realize just how freaking awesome she is.

Rosenfeld has mastery of the turn of a phrase to evoke a sly, almost unassuming humour that sneaks up on you when you least expect it. It’s not quite a dry humour, and it’s not quite a sarcastic humour – it’s wonderfully unique. The One that Got Away is not a long novel, and yet it packs a complete punch. I can only assume Rosenfeld draws on her gift of poetry to say so much with fewer words than most would use.

The One That Got Away takes readers on a humorous and heartfelt journey of later-­in-­life sexual self-­discovery in bustling New York City. A bridal consultant learns that when you peel off the glossy veneer of romantic perfection, what’s left is your own true-­to-­life happy ending. Bambi Devine, known to her friends as B.D., is a middle-­aged bridal consultant who has recently come out to her friends after years of kidding herself about her sexuality—only to find out her friends knew all along and were just too polite to say anything to her.

Then B.D. meets Bridget McKnight, the woman of her dreams. Unfortunately for her, Bridget is in a relationship with Natalie Lamont. But Natalie’s intense friendship with Maxine Huff has New York City’s lesbian community buzzing with speculation. Are they really just friends? Could these two members of the Park Slope Clitocybes—a mycological society—share a passion for more than morels? And more importantly for B.D., does this mean she stands a chance with Bridget? After years of hand-­holding demanding brides, B.D. knows what love can do to sane people. Fortified by doses of drag queen wisdom from her boss, Eduardo, B.D. tackles unrequited love and lust, dyke drama, and being in a relationship without having a date for New Year’s Eve in this romp about queer life in New York City.

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Now, let’s go from heartbreak and coming-out later in life to a pair of lesbians who’ve hit retirement age and… can’t. Financially, they’ve hit roadblocks in part due to the lived reality of queerness, but also because of familial issues, life, and the reality is they’re looking at financial insecurity at a time in their life where options are limited.

So, what are you going to do?

Well, if you’re a former military lesbian maybe you start a new career as an assassin.

Yep. That’s what I said. What I love about Martha Miller’s Retirement Plan is how deftly the story is written. At no point was I doing anything but nodding along, thinking, yes, this makes sense, when quite literally we’ve got a senior woman deciding that the solution here is to become a killer for hire. It helps they decide pretty early that they’re going to do this with some sort of ethical guidelines (I mean, as much as one can in this situation) and that another plot walks alongside with those investigating the murders she’s been hired to undertake. I listened to this one as an audiobook, too, which was a nice added bonus.

What do you do when you fall through the loopholes in the system and all you have to rely on are your own wits?

Lois and Sophie have scrambled and saved for years, planning for their retirement in Florida. But now they’ve lost it all, and Lois’s sniper training from her long-ago service as an Army nurse leads to a desperate career choice.

When Detective Morgan Holiday is assigned to investigate a spate of sniper killings, it’s just one more stress point in her already overburdened life. But as she grows increasingly solitary—coping with an Alzheimer’s-plagued mother who refuses to be confined to a nursing home, and a police partner counting the days to retirement—she comes to realize that these murders may cut close to home.

A modern morality tale of justice, retribution, and women who refuse to be politely invisible.

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Hit me with your silver sapphics in the comments below! Or older queer characters of from any part of the queer umbrella! (I feel like once Pride Month is over I should totally do a post on just older-characters-in-fiction, because I’ve got a few I’ve really loved with characters that aren’t queer).