She and Her Pretty Friend book review
Hey, you know all those books about the history of Australian queer women? No? That’s because there’s fuck all.
But Danielle Scrimshaw saw this gap in the literature, put on her thinking hat, and said “LET’S GO LESBIANS, LET’S GO!” and produced She and Her Pretty Friend; a beautiful compilation of Australian lesbian history. Considering the massive lack of recorded stories out there, Danielle had a real challenge on her hands — as she pours through old diaries and vague newspaper clippings from a century or two ago, putting the pieces together to form what the scholars before us might have called a “strong female friendship”. Which, clearly, was a poor assessment of the situation.
This book recounts queer women’s history in such a fascinating way that it’s hard to put down, and every few pages had me reading out a fun (or not fun) fact to my fiancée. And what’s even cuter — is the way Danielle incorporates her own queer relationship into this book, ever so subtly. It’s the kind of authors perspective that feels incredibly relevant, and one you actually care about.
My favourite part about reading this was realising “wow, lesbians truly never do change.” Since the beginning of time, we have been quickly falling in love, scribbling it down in a diary, then immediately moving in with our lover and disconnecting ourselves from the rest of the entire world. Bunnings meet-cutes unfortunately, come in a little bit later.
There’s a paragraph in this book that almost conveys the amount of work and passion that went into this project. Danielle writes: “Researching history isn’t as easy as some would think. It’s not a matter of going to a library, opening a document, and seeing everything I want laid before me. There were no letters or photographs proving the sexuality of either Katie or Lesbia. Sometimes I wonder if people of the past did not wish to be known by future generations. I can picture Katie in her older age, tossing intimate letters into an open fire. If it wasn’t for her name appearing in a few of Lesbia’s unpublished poems, historians might not remember her at all.”
Do yourself a favour and sit down with this novel and a lavender oat iced latte, or whatever you young gays are drinking now.
