Reviews - After Sappho | The StoryGraph

1.37k reviews for:

After Sappho

Selby Wynn Schwartz

3.69 AVERAGE

winedarksea_ofbooks's review

3.0

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I feel like I should have appreciated this more. I like the concept (a mix between fiction and biography with a sprinkle of Sappho's fragments) and it was beautifully written and by times really engaging - but it was hard for me to get through. I should probably dive more into early twentieth century literature written by women and then try again someday.

ninfadeloslagos's review against another edition

4.75

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This book was a spiritual experience. It celebrates the past and críticas nostalgia. It thanks our fore-bearers without excusing their faults. It knows it can never be the full experience either.
It did take me long to read, if I would change anything it would be to include images, portraits and art to make it a more integral experience of the era, which in itself was never just written or painted or photographed.

etch's review against another edition

4.5

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

annaharv's review against another edition

2.75

slow-paced

Strong character development: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

eheidenreich's review against another edition

4.25

fast-paced

This book takes the concept from "The Chart" in the L Word and applies it to culturally influential European women of late 1800s to the early 1900s. Each connection is a short story, imbued with these women's feelings, beliefs, and the art they created. Schwartz weaves together the connections between these women alongside the political atmosphere of Europe and literature of the past, namely Sappho, to shape their experiences beyond what we can read in a biography.

This book is relatively dense, with somewhere around 40 women mentioned and varying degrees of relevancy to each other. I took notes while reading this book like I was studying for a test. With grandiloquent writing, this book mixes the genres of biography and speculative fiction. This is not just a narrative of these women's lives but paints them as part of a perpetual collective force towards feminism and queerness.

vickreads's review against another edition

4.75

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Selby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho is a poetic, genre-defying novel that reimagines the lives of historical women—writers, artists, and activists—who defied patriarchal constraints to carve out space for their creative and intellectual pursuits. The book is a deeply evocative exploration of feminist resistance, sapphic desire, and the act of self-creation. It blends fiction and history in a lyrical, fragmented style that mirrors Sappho’s own lost verses.

Told in a collective voice, the novel weaves together figures spanning the late 19th and early 20 century, like Virginia Woolf, Lina Poletti, Eileen Gray, Colette, and many others, celebrating their defiance, creativity, and queer lineage. Schwartz’s prose is fragmented, rather than a linear narrative, the book unfolds as a series of vignettes, demanding an engaged reader willing to embrace its experimental form. I admit that I only just managed to be one of these readers. It is not always an easy read, but it is a broadly sourced read which routinely pushed me onto new discoveries of historical women and their works.

At its core, After Sappho is about transformation—the ways in which women reinvent themselves in defiance of societal norms. The novel highlights their struggles against legal and cultural constraints, from restrictive marriage laws to the limitations placed on their artistic ambitions. Yet, rather than focusing solely on oppression, Schwartz celebrates these women’s resilience, passion, and creative brilliance.

For readers interested in the history of lesbian identity and artistic defiance, After Sappho is a deeply resonant work. It positions these women as part of a continuum, a lineage of queer creativity and feminist resistance. The novel does not just recount their lives; it envisions them as part of an ongoing movement, a collective force that persists into the present.

Challenging yet rewarding, this was a beautifully crafted, intellectually rich novel—a stunning tribute to the enduring power of women’s voices and queer creativity.