thecolourblue 's review for:

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

3.75

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Another book in the current micro-trend of (often queer) literary-history books, or books that combine real historical record and people with literary fiction writing. “A hybrid of imaginaries and intimate non-fictions, of speculative biographies and ‘suggestions for short pieces’” as the author describes it. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments and The Age of Phillis fall into this category too, and maybe even My Government Means to Kill Me (as well as Lesbian Love Story, although it does it much less successfully). 

This one I think is pretty successful, and name-drops a lot of both influential and lesser known historic queer femme figures. 

The first thing we did was change our names. We were going to be Sappho. Who was Sappho? No one knew, but she had an island. She was garlanded with girls. She could sit down to dine and look straight at the woman she loved, however unhappily. When she sang, everyone said, it was like evening on a riverbank, sinking down into the moss with the sky pouring over you. All of her poems were songs.