Journal-format account of a close friendship between two feminist women of different sexual orientations during an intense moment in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Self-published under Friends Press in October, 1976. Co-author Esther Newton, a founder and leading scholar of LGBTQ studies, uses the following description on her website: “From 1970 through 1972, at the height of the Women's Liberation Movement and the explosive beginning of what would be Lesbian Separatism, Shirley Walton and Esther Newton kept a joint journal, writing separately but in constant conversation with each other. Best friends since college, the two struggled, not always successfully, to keep their different sexual orientations and life choices within the frame of their friendship and feminist sisterhood…This book is now an intimate historical document of one of the most exciting periods in the twentieth century.” Per a review by feminist writer and educator Kate Millett, “The idea of a joint journal…between two old friends is a delightful invention. But the book’s most valuable contribution to the consciousness of women in our time is the dialogue, one might even say debate, between straight woman and gay; sometimes wonderfully funny, sometimes angry, but always growing and loving, healing and understanding.” 8vo, printed wrappers, 210 pages, with a few b/w portraits of the authors. It is likely that the present softcover edition is the only version printed; I found no evidence of a hardcover edition. Hinges somewhat weakened. Binding cracked between pp. 34-35, but otherwise sound. Some bumping and rubbing to edge-chipped wrappers, especially at spine. Scarce.
Journal-format account of a close friendship between two feminist women of different sexual orientations during an intense moment in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Self-published under Friends Press in October, 1976. Co-author Esther Newton, a founder and leading scholar of LGBTQ studies, uses the following description on her website: “From 1970 through 1972, at the height of the Women's Liberation Movement and the explosive beginning of what would be Lesbian Separatism, Shirley Walton and Esther Newton kept a joint journal, writing separately but in constant conversation with each other. Best friends since college, the two struggled, not always successfully, to keep their different sexual orientations and life choices within the frame of their friendship and feminist sisterhood…This book is now an intimate historical document of one of the most exciting periods in the twentieth century.” Per a review by feminist writer and educator Kate Millett, “The idea of a joint journal…between two old friends is a delightful invention. But the book’s most valuable contribution to the consciousness of women in our time is the dialogue, one might even say debate, between straight woman and gay; sometimes wonderfully funny, sometimes angry, but always growing and loving, healing and understanding.” 8vo, printed wrappers, 210 pages, with a few b/w portraits of the authors. It is likely that the present softcover edition is the only version printed; I found no evidence of a hardcover edition. Hinges somewhat weakened. Binding cracked between pp. 34-35, but otherwise sound. Some bumping and rubbing to edge-chipped wrappers, especially at spine. Scarce.
