After Delores

As far as summer reads go, Sarah Schulman’s 1988 novel After Delores, the gripping, fast-paced story of a lesbian woman on a revenge mission against the girlfriend who betrayed her, might be a bit of an unusual pick—but it’s a book I associate with the season. 

Maybe it’s the way the narrator moves at a fevered pace around New York City’s Lower East Side, plotting and flirting, heartbroken and enraged, at a level of intensity best matched by the heat of summer - that is, when she’s not drinking from the corner of some forgotten bar, lost in daydreams and memories, a mood to fit the energy crash of a summer afternoon fading away. 

"When it was published, After Delores brought readers into the emotionally anarchic world of a community that was invisible, disregarded, and disrespected by the mainstream, showing the consequences that this abandonment had for its members. It is as revealing now as it was then, in addition to being a suspenseful, thoroughly engrossing read for summer." - Corinne Segal, Senior Editor Lithub

The novel is a fast-paced, electrifying chronicle of the Lower East Side’s lesbian subculture in the 1980s.