Forbidden Passages (Tr)

The apathy of the U.S. literary industry to the ongoing campaign of censorship by its neighbors to the north continues, even as Customs siezures there mount. While publishing houses seem surprisingly content to suffer the occasional indignities--and costs--of filing legal defenses and recalling shipments, many individuals remain wholly ignorant that the works of such luminaries as Marguerite Duras, Dorothy Allison, bell hooks, and Kathy Acker are regularly held up at the Canadian border posts--sometimes later to be released, sometimes mysteriously disappearing. Cleis Press aims to challenge both U.S. ignorance and the Canadian government's right to determine what is fit reading for its populace with this collection of 19 excerpts from books previously siezed. The writers are mostly gay and lesbian, the subject matter ranging from Professor Richard Mohr's ""Gay Studies as Moral Vision"" from Beacon Press's accalimed Gay Ideas, to Susie Bright's ""Egg Sex,"" on the effects of pregnancy on women's sexual desires. More important than the selections, however, are the two prefaces. Pat Califia delivers a cogent and passionate argument against state control of information, while the history of Canada's recently expanded rights of siezure is delineated by Vancouver's Little Sisters bookstore manager Janine Fuller. Unable to stock books their cutomers were requesting, Little Sisters filed suit against Canadian customs, so far incurring more than $200,000 in legal fees. Cleis is helping by donating proceeds from the book to Little Sisters; librarians can help by stocking this informative book in all public and academic libraries in the U.S.--Eric Bryant, ""Library Journal""