cover image Girls Next Door

Girls Next Door

Lindsy Van Gelder, Gelder Van. Simon & Schuster, $23 (314pp) ISBN 978-0-684-81118-5

In a revealing cross-section of lesbian life in America, the authors, both journalists as well as life partners, report on their travels through various lesbian subcultures. They joined a cross-country Pride Ride of the Austin, Tex., Lesbian Avengers, a political direct-action group protesting anti-gay ordinances. They attended the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, often called the ""Lesbian Woodstock,"" where thousands of naked or seminude women gather in the woods for a tribal experience. They witnessed a lesbian wedding ceremony at a Unitarian Universalist church in Indiana; met closeted and open lesbian golf pros at chic parties on a Palm Springs, Calif., tournament circuit; and tagged after Seattle city councilwoman Sherry Harris, the nation's first avowed black elected lesbian official. Through interviews with some 100 women, a candid picture emerges of lesbians coping with low self-esteem, gay-bashing, rejection by their families and sexual self-definition. Many interviewees feel their sexuality is genetic or inborn, while others say they have made a conscious decision to leave heterosexual lifestyles. Van Gelder is chief writer for Allure; Brandt, a New York Daily News columnist. (June)