Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"To have a volume about lesbian activism that focuses on the most effective, most publicized and controversial group, the Lesbian Avengers, is almost too good to be true. Eating Fire is an intimate activist handbook that offers a generous ‘us’ and we can happily enter the space of it from so many angles." —Eileen Myles, author of Inferno (A Poet's Novel)
"Activist histories of social movements are rare yet essential to understanding how social change actually happens. Stories of lesbian activism are even harder to find. This unique, evocative, and fascinating memoir tells both a personal and a community story of creativity, political commitment, grief, and the love that motivates it all." —Urvashi Vaid, author of
Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics"This free wheeling memoir of lesbian activism —alternately funny and raucous, meditative and reflective—is a document of a specific time and place. But it is also a marvelous, timeless tale of wit, survival, determination, and ultimately facing history. Veering between
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dyke and
Rebel Without a Pause, Cogswell’s memoir of the Lesbian Avengers is incisive, politically astute, and a much needed addition to LGBT history." —Michael Bronski, Harvard University
"Although the Lesbian Avengers have been defunct since 1995, Cogswell’s idealistic objective in the fight for civil rights is still relevant: to make lesbians visible, change society, and most importantly, change lesbians, who will come to see the public space as theirs." —
Kirkus Reviews"
Gay City News columnist Cogswell’s memoir (as much a cultural as personal history) is a needed addition to this focus [on queer activism from the early 1990s], highlighting the understudied path of the international force, the Lesbian Avengers. Fast-paced and reminiscent of New Narrative, there’s a lot of instructive joy to be found with a mixture of performance and protest fueling the prose. . . this memoir shines as surely as its history needs telling." —
Publishers Weekly"
Eating Fire is a sometimes entertaining, sometimes painful read. It recounts an important chapter in queer history along with some useful principles of direct action." —
Gay City News"
Eating Fire is a reminder, an homage, a call to rally, and a plea to this generation of queer women. While this story is tenacious in some moments and vulnerable in others, it is always triumphant. Inspiring and absolutely heroic. This story belongs to us all." —
Lambda Literary"Reading Cogswell’s account is also to read an object study in not only the exciting birth and life of such groups, but also the flipside, which is their painful decline and fall. [Her] book most powerfully reminds you of the necessary mess of activism." —
The Daily Beast"An energetic and outspoken memoir." —
Booklist"She waxes nostalgic for the radicalism of the era, and like many of her contemporaries, laments the gay rights movement’s embrace of conservative mainstream ideals. Cogswell says she’s ‘burned out’ on activism, but her book is filled with longing for the sound of protest and the taste of fire." —
Huffington Post"Cogswell’s nonlinear, adrenaline-fueled narrative captures the energy behind the Avengers’ creative and media-savvy actions." —
BitchTable of ContentsContents
I. Activist HoneymoonII. Enemies WithinIII. A Laboratory of IdentityIV. Vivas to Those Who Have Failed
Acknowledgments
