For Me and My Gal by Robbi McCoy

Publisher:       Bella Books

"It was very hard to be a lesbian back then.  You had to lead a double life, a life full of lies and hypocrisy.... It seemed easier.  There was so much secrecy and shame too.  I know we're all proud now, but you can't really be proud in a climate like that.  I mean, you kept it to yourself.  You had to...."

Those are the words from a journal that will set Gwen Lawford on a journey of discovery and bring love into her life.  They are also words that should be remembered by lesbians today.

Gwen and Shelby Pratt are going to discover that their lives are entwined in more than one way.  Gwen is the director of a naval museum on San Francisco Bay and first meets Shelby when she unintentionally gets Shelby fired from her waitressing job.  After making amends for that, the women become friends.  When Gwen finds the journal of a Navy WAVE written in World War II, she and Shelby begin to unravel the mystery of who the woman was.  Shelby is in for a surprise she never expects, beside the fact that she's falling in love with Gwen.

This is a romance, both old and new, but the real story is about women during the war.  McCoy does an excellent job of showing how the war changed the lives of women, the jobs they were allowed to hold, the change of their positions in households and the expectations they held for themselves.  World War II would alter many people's ideas about the possibilities for various minorities in the United States and McCoy shows how women tried to cope with those changing beliefs.  Then she runs that plot simultaneously with one about lesbians in the military and how they were forced to hide an important part of themselves.  By bringing the story into current time, she makes a nice contrast with the period now following the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The problem with history is that it is so easy to forget.  If something is not going on at that very moment, it tends to be shoved to the side and forgotten.  People who live in the present have a tendency not to understand how different or difficult things were before them and to judge things only by what they have experienced.  Many women today do not realize that women were ever segregated into their own units in the military.  Books like For Me and My Gal remind us of where we came from and how we got here.  That is an important service in giving the reader a chance to reflect and think.

For Me and My Gal has two romances, a bit of history and current topics.  Robbi McCoy is a masterful writer and she delivers more than one great story in this book.  The reader can feel confident in buying it and know that she's going to have a satisfying experience.

Don't lose the history

I recently finished Robbi McCoy's For Me and My Gal.  As I'm finding out, I enjoy each of Robbi's books, for different reasons.  This one is a historical novel, always something close to my heart, and I'll write about that in a review.  There were two paragraphs though that rang a bell with me and that, I think, speak to a concern I have.  Let me quote them first.  One of the characters, who started a US Navy career during World War II, is speaking in the present about why she left a woman she loved.

"It was very hard to be a lesbian back then.  You had to lead a double life, a life full of lies and hypocrisy.... It seemed easier.  There was so much secrecy and shame too.  I know we're all proud now, but you can't really be proud in a climate like that.  I mean, you kept it to yourself.  You had to....

.....You might think this is funny, but I never even knew the word 'lesbian' until I was your age, late twenties.  I mean, I was one, but I didn't know what I was.  I didn't know what to call it....The thing is, if you don't have a label, you can't form a united front.  Some people think labels are destructive, but there are a lot of instances where a label gives you a community, and a community gives you strength.   If you don't even have a name for what you are, you don't identify with others like you.  We lived very private and lonely lives.  That was the worst thing.  We lived in shadows.   And we had no idea how many of us there were."

I worry sometimes that we're losing our history.  I see it in the intemperate words that characters sometimes say in the books when they rail against people who are closeted or the comments that are sometimes made on groups by younger members who say they don't understand why people are concerned about being identified.

I hear this all the time from my students.  The African American students know practically nothing about the civil rights movement and even less about what came between the end of the Civil War and Montgomery.  The female students don't understand why there was a women's movement.  Every year several of them will tell me that they are accepted at a particular college and then they look at me with a total lack of comprehension when I say that I wanted to go there, too, but that school didn't accept female students when I was applying to college.  When I tell my students that I remember when the medical profession finally declared that being homosexual isn't a medical disease, they don't understand why anyone would think that in the first place.

I understand that it's a normal process.  Those who never experienced something can't really appreciate what it was like.  For those who lived through the experience however, it's difficult to hear younger people talk about how much easier it is now, to say that they don't understand it, or, worse, that they don't remember anything about it.

As a lover of history, I would wish that none of us would ever forget what came before us.


 

Waltzing at Midnight by Robbi McCoy

Publisher:                Bella Books

Waltzing at Midnight tells a story not seen enough in lesbian fiction.  It's about a woman who finds at the age of forty that she is evolving into a new person and the many ways that her life is affected by the changes.

Jean Davis thinks she knows what her life is about.  For more than twenty years she has built her existence around her marriage to Jerry and the needs of their two children.  She passes through the time in a kind of fog of respectability, happy with her limited possibilities and enjoying the reflected glory of her family's accomplishments.  All of that comes to an end when she decides to volunteer in the mayoral campaign of Rosie Monroe.  Rosie is a well known businesswoman and major player in the power structure who exudes energy and vitality in everything that she does.  Jean finds herself caught up in the highly charged environment that Rosie creates and realizes that she is changing in fundamental ways that call into question everything she has always thought about herself. 

As Jean's personality begins to unfold, she finds that she likes being respected by other people and seen as someone who can get things done.  As Rosie encourages her to stretch her abilities and move into her own career, Jean also discovers that she is developing an emotional attachment to a woman for the first time.  She recalls reading Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken in high school and not understanding it, but the meaning has become crystal clear to her now.  She has two roads before her, one of conformity and one with frightening possibilities.  The choice is Jean's to make, but not without consequences.

This is an exceptionally well developed story and one that was refreshing to read because it follows a different path to its conclusion.  Many people find themselves at a crossroads in their lives where they have to choose what has always been or dare to try something new.  Most books choose to tell the easier stories of younger characters and ignore what happens to more mature women.  Jean's struggle is one that many readers will identify with.  Though this is a romance, the central theme is about the ordeal Jean goes through in weighing family expectations against the excitement she feels over discovering talents and interests she never realized she had.  This isn't a story just about a woman discovering lesbianism, but of one opening up her life and finding out who she was, could be and wants to be.

Rosie Monroe is central to Jean's development.  Everyone should have someone in their lives like her.  She encourages Jean in her explorations and allows her to soar, even when it might take Jean away from her.  She provides strength, experience and wisdom when it's needed, but she never dictates to Jean what she should do.  Most importantly, she refuses to lead Jean away from her family, knowing that it would destroy their relationship, and instead leaves Jean to determine for herself what her course should be.

It's hard to believe that this is Robbi McCoy's first book because it's written with such skill.  She doesn't rush her points, but draws the reader along at exactly the right pace.  Not only is it enjoyable, but this is one of those books that it's hard to put down.  If Waltzing at Midnight is indicative of McCoy's innate ability, then readers have some good stories to look forward to.

Songs Without Words by Robbi McCoy

Publisher:             Bella Books

Harper Sheridan is a librarian by profession, a musician by inclination and a film maker by accident.  She spends her school years working at a university and performing in the local symphony.  Her summers are used for travel, making a series of films about female artists and love.  The major events of her life seem to occur during the summer, including a brief, but passionate affair with Chelsea Nichols.  They meet when Harper makes a movie about Chelsea's lover Mary, a talented, but arrogant, artist who sheds young lovers like skin cells, but Chelsea is different for both women.  When Chelsea leaves Harper to return to Mary, Harper is devastated, but years have passed when the book opens and Harper is determined to get on with her life.  This summer is for falling in love.  Unfortunately, her plans are disrupted when her niece runs away from her parents and shows up at Harper's house and then Chelsea reappears.  None of this is what Harper planned for her summer, but she must follow the notes of the song of her life that is being played with all of the skill she has ever used on her cello.

McCoy uses a technique in this book that can be difficult.  She jumps back and forth in time, showing an interaction and then the events that led up to it in previous summers.  Once the reader gets a handle on that, the book flows smoothly.  McCoy gives her story depth by developing interesting supporting characters.  One of the most intriguing is also the one easiest to dislike, the artist Mary.  She's brilliant, talented and cruel, but she's also the first one to truly understand Harper's niece and what she needs.  If Mary wasn't determined to keep Harper and Chelsea apart, she could be a terrific friend, of a type.

Each summer shows how different people shaped who Harper became.  Another artist Wilona leads Harper on a trip of self discovery where she has to redefine her concept of art, creativity and herself.  Her brother Danny, an ex-priest, draws on her spirituality; Roxie, a fellow orchestra member and friend provides a strong dose of reality and stability; and Peggy is the childhood friend whose heart Harper broke, but who revealed and integral part of Harper's being.  As each character interacts with Harper, she becomes the song that is being written.  Each incident is a twisting of notes and tempo until a finished product emerges.

Robbi McCoy is proving her ability to write a complex story while keeping it interesting and easy to understand.  With books like this her fan base can only continue to grow.

Something to Believe by Robbi McCoy

Publisher:                Bella Books

Robbi McCoy has created one of the most appealing characters to come out of lesbian fiction in a book that is about mature relationships and dealing with people honorably. Faith is the partner and lover that every woman hopes to find.  She's the friend that everyone wishes they had.

Something to Believe opens ten years ago when Faith, who is an anthropologist, is on a cruise in China with her partner Lauren to see the Yangtze River before the dam project is completed and many cultural sites are flooded.  On the ship they meet Cassie and Jennifer who are on vacation.  They quickly become friends, especially Lauren and Cassie, who find they are attracted to each other.  Though they try to maintain a friendship, both come to accept that their attraction is too great a temptation to violate the relationships they have and they lose contact with each other.

Ten years later Lauren, now a widow, and Cassie meet by accident and decide to renew their friendship.  Lauren is mourning the loss of Faith and tortured by something she discovered after Faith's death that has shaken her belief in everything.  Cassie, now single and a successful lawyer, is still trying to resolve issues with the son she has been estranged from for many years.  Though neither is looking for a relationship, they will have to reassess everything as they become reacquainted.  Cassie know how she has felt for years, but she has to convince Lauren that it is possible to love two people equally. 

The nice thing about this book is that shows an established relationship the way it ought to be.  Faith and Lauren not only experience a profound love, but they respect and complement each other in every way that makes a partnership work.  Though they are both tempted, they have the intelligence and maturity to realize that what they have is more important than a momentary indulgence.  Too often in lesbian literature the characters seem consumed with making a connection and getting into bed and then worrying about something deeper later.  It's refreshing to see a couple who knows how to behave properly and to set their priorities correctly.  Even after Faith is gone, Lauren knows that no other relationship will work until she achieves an appropriate conclusion to the one she had with Faith.

Faith is the character who makes this book work. She establishes the tone of the first part of the book and she's a commanding presence after she departs the story physically. The irony of her is that, despite her name and the fact that she studies burial practices of various cultures, she has no belief herself in a high power or afterlife.  It's her theory of life that makes her stand out: "This is my one shot and I try to make the best of it.  Live every day with determination to make it a good one.  I'm grateful to be alive, every day."  She is not overbearing, but the way she conducts herself is a lesson she teaches by example.  She presents an optimistic attitude that is grounded in reality.  Faith sets a high standard for anyone to live by, but she represents the kind of person you can trust implicitly and wish you were more like. 

Robbie McCoy is establishing herself as one of the finest of the lesbian romance authors by building a body of work that stands above the crowd.  Something to Believe is an excellent addition to the list.