Old Dyke Tales

by Lee Lynch

Classic collection of wonderfully entertaining short stories of working-class women's lives.

Genres: Lesbian, LGBT, Fiction, Queer, Short Stories, Lesbian Fiction

205 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Lee Lynch published her first lesbian fiction in “The Ladder” in the 1960s. Naiad Press issued Toothpick House, Old Dyke Tales, and more. Her novel The Swashbuckler was presented in NYC as a play scripted by Sarah Schulman. New Victoria Publishers brought out Rafferty Street, the last book of Lynch’s Morton River Valley Trilogy. Her backlist is becoming available in electronic format from Bold Strokes Books. Her newest novels are Beggar of Love and The Raid from Bold Strokes. Her recent short stories can be found in Romantic Interludes (Bold Strokes Books), Women In Uniform (Regal Crest) and at www.readtheselips.com. Her reviews and feature articles have appeared in such publications as “The San Francisco Chronicle,” “The Advocate” and “The Lambda Book Report.” Lynch’s syndicated column, “The Amazon Trail,” runs in venues such as boldstrokesbooks.com, justaboutwrite.com, “Letters From Camp Rehoboth,” and “On Top Magazine.”

Lee Lynch was honored by the Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS) as the first recipient (for The Swashbuckler) and namesake of The Lee Lynch Classics Award, which will honor outstanding works in Lesbian Fiction published before awards and honors were given. She also is a recipient of the Alice B. Reader Award for Lesbian Fiction, the James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award, which honors LGBT mid-career novelists of extraordinary talent and service to the LGBT community, and was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame. In 2010 Beggar of Love received the GCLS Ann Bannon Readers’ Choice Award and the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Bronze Award in Gay/Lesbian Fiction. She has twice been nominated for Lambda Literary Awards and her novel Sweet Creek (Bold Strokes Books) was a GCLS award finalist.

She lives in rural Florida with her wife.

Reviews

[Maia Zade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from the very creepy "Augusta Brennan I" where the old lady is getting lovingly nostalgic over having been a fifteen-year-old neighbor girl's first sexual experience when she herself was 53 years old and the final "At the Bar" vignette with the uncomfortable race relations (i.e., racism against Black women), it was an interesting collection of stories and perspectives on being a lesbian pre-1980s. I think "Pleasure Park" may have been my favorite, but the two "Fruit Stand" vignettes were good, too.

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't actually remember if it's this book or if Lee Lynch has another collection of stories, but the main character of one of the stories really touched my heart. She was a young butch who, I think, drag raced a young man and lost. She realized that the young woman she was trying to impress would rather have the winner - the young man. But she wanted the butch, instead. Something about this, and having to be better to be "okay," is certainly the way I felt back then. To have someone say, "no, you don't have to be better to be loved by me" was just awesome.

And what a great writer!

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

The good stories are SO GOOD and the voice of an old new englandy dyke is so wonderful! There are a few hiccups - a story with a character who identifies as a woman but is "living as a man" with a lesbian partner in a small town with some odd commentary; a self-loathing fat femme character in a story "converting" someone from polyamory/lauding the supremecy of monogamy; a character who is horrible/unlikeable being racist and saying a lot of racist stuff, although the overall theme is allyship and antisegregation - but overall joyful/simple/strong stories

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

a piece of bittersweet history. I'm really glad the 1980s are long gone!

[Ella Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely worth a read, but marked it down because of the story 'Augusta Brennan I'. I wish this wasn't included in this collection of short stories.
This might be the first book I've read that features elderly lesbians and it brought me so much joy to read about them growing old together, as well as reading stories of happy lesbian marriages from the 1980s and earlier.

[Julia]

dnf 54%

I don’t think short stories are for me, as much as I wish they were 😔

[Marks House]

3 copies