by Fay Jacobs
“Can you see us all in the emergency room trying to explain what happened?”
I laughed so hard I had to leave the room and readers of a certain age know why.
The conversation then turned to the film The Kids Are All Right, starring Julianne Moore and Annette Bening.
Now Annette Bening is my one dispensation. If you are coupled, do you have a celebrity monogamy dispensation? My spouse of 28-plus years would wink and look the other way if I had the chance to um…go out on a date with Annette Bening. Like that’s gonna happen. But the dispensation has been offered and accepted, just in case hell should freeze over.
But I digress.
The Kids Are All Right, is an honest depiction of a very contemporary long-term lesbian relationship. Annette and Julianne play characters who love each other but are navigating a rough patch. Their son seeks out his sperm donor father and the story turns hilarious and insightful, examining a marriage being tested, tried and ultimately (well, I won’t say…).
What’s fun, and very encouraging, is that author-director Lisa Cholodenko did not shy away from showing a dysfunctional gay family, thereby proving exactly how equal we can be to a family suffering heterosexual dysfunction.
But my favorite clue that the film signals change is that Cholodenko was not afraid to piss off lesbian audiences (I am side-stepping a spoiler here) by having the plot take a turn lots of people might have wished it hadn’t. That being said, Julianne Moore’s final speech is so magical, and the performances so stunning and fun (way to go, Annette!), the film works for many, many satisfying reasons.
All this being said, I closed my eyes the other night, hopeful that things are improvinig for gay people, with the country coming around (albeit slowly) to the concept of equality for all, including gay marriage equality.
What was I thinking? By morning, I learned that teabagging, gay baiting, coven-joining, reparative therapy-endorsing right-wing nut bag Christine O’Donnell had won the Republican Nomination to run for the Senate in Delaware. I wanted to hurl. Not only do her politics and ethics offend me (she’s been illegally living on campaign funds) but as an editor I’m aghast – she makes up words. Today’s was “factuous,” as in “those claims are not factuous.” Yesterday she said “The United States is the free-est place in the country.” And she thinks we’re not worthy?
In bad news to worse, a local Aryan Nation organization (yes, there is one here) marched for White Power on the shore this weekend.
So I’m trying to hang onto the two steps forward, one step back theory to keep my sanity, but it’s tough. I close my eyes and fanatisize Angelina Jolie swooping down on those hate-filled Aryan marchers and kicking the living daylights out of them. And while she’s busy, maybe Rizolli and Isles can get Christine O’Donnell into an interrogation room to confess about the root of her raging homophobia.
And oh yeah, while all that’s going on, maybe Annette Bening and I can sneak away for a martini.
I can dream, can’t I?
Afterword
Hello, readers. A lot has happened since this book was first published.
My four books As I Lay Frying, Fried & True, For Frying Out Loud, and Time Fries were all originally published by A&M Books, a successor to the legendary Naiad Press. Readers of a certain age may recall that Naiad was formed in 1974, by four courageous lesbians. Two of the women—Anyda Marchant, a lesbian novelist who wrote under the name Sarah Aldridge, and her partner and editor Muriel Crawford—lived in Rehoboth Beach.
Naiad Press was the first and became, in its day, the most successful lesbian publishing company in the world. Of course, in the 70s you couldn’t even buy a lesbian novel in a bookstore. You had to mail order and it arrived like pornography in a plain brown wrapper. That’s how it was marketed—we’ll send it to you and nobody has to know. No wonder it took us so long to feel any pride.
In 1995, Anyda and Muriel left Naiad Press and, though by this time in their eighties, founded A&M Books of Rehoboth. It was Anyda who suggested I compile my published newspaper columns into my first book. Anyda and Muriel were brave women and fierce feminists. They were Rehoboth’s Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. They loved each other, publishing and Scotch whisky, not necessarily in that order. When Anyda and Muriel, a couple for 57 years, both passed away in 2005, I became owner of A&M Books. And I tried, the best I could, to live up to their example—in literature and cocktails.
It was great fun but not easy running a small independent publishing house—literally; it was my house. The shed was the Rehoboth book depository, my spouse was fulfillment manager, and my Schnauzer worked security.
Now, after a decade as a publisher, I am thrilled to have merged A&M Books with the wonderful publisher Bywater Books. The entire Frying series has been given new life in beautifully produced editions, along with another A&M book called The Carousel by Stefani Deoul. And most importantly, Anyda and Muriel, the original publishers will continue to be celebrated as the true pioneers they were.
And, for a retiree, my life is suddenly going in all kinds of surprising new directions and I’m having a blast. I still live in Rehoboth Beach, still write my columns, and still have wacky experiences that are worth the story I can tell. The march toward equality alone has been worth reams of paper and barrels of ink.
With running a publishing house off my plate, I was free to do the second most exciting thing that has happened to me. At age 60-something, I have a whole new career. I’m touring with my oral memoir Aging Gracelessly: 50 Shades of Fay. Reviewers have called the reading “sit-down comedy” as I tell some fun stories from my books and chart our LGBT march from the closeted outlaw days to marriage equality. As I write this I am headed to The Big Apple and the Duplex Cabaret Theatre on Christopher Street in NYC. For this lapsed New Yorker it will be a huge thrill.
So please, check out all of my new Bywater Books editions and come see 50 Shades of Fay if I show up in a venue near you.
And remember, nothing is ever so horrible if it’s worth the story you can tell!
Fay Jacobs
April, 2016
Rehoboth Beach, DE
PRAISE FOR FAY JACOBS
“Her columns… are laugh out loud funny and the best part is that Jacobs is sincere…those who enjoy her essays won’t be disappointed and those reading her for the first time will understand why she’s such a beloved columnist.”
–Lambda Literary Review
“It’s an intelligent, hysterically funny and occasionally poignant look at how we live today, with hopes for tomorrow. Recommended for everyone, male or female, gay or straight. Five stars out of five.”
–Echo Magazine
As I Lay Frying
Print 978-1-61294-071-7
Ebook 978-1-61294-072-4
Fried and True
Print 978-1-61294-073-1
Ebook 978-1-61294-074-8
www.bywaterbooks.com
“Fay’s essays resonate with warmth, candid hmor, and the unabashed joy of finding one’s place.”
– OUTtraveler
“Fay Jacob’s hilarious dispatches are funny, touching—and real. This is a true laugh riot, as Fay wittily takes on sexuality, politics, relationships, and day-to-day dilemmas.”
–Insight Out Book Club
Fay Jacobs’ books are part memoir, part social commentary, and an easy and fun summer read. Very smart, very funny, very insightful. These books will appeal to everyone.
– Northampton’s Pride and Joy Bookstore
For Frying Out Loud
Print 978-1-61294-075-5
Ebook 978-1-61294-076-2
Time Fries!
Print 978-1-61294-077-9
Ebook 978-1-61294-078-6
www.bywaterbooks.com
At Bywater Books we love good books about lesbians just like you do, and we’re committed to bringing the best of contemporary lesbian writing to our avid readers. Our editorial team is dedicated to finding and developing outstanding writers who create books y
ou won’t want to put down.
We sponsor the Bywater Prize for Fiction to help with this quest. Each prize winner receives $1,000 and publication of their novel. We have already discovered amazing writers like Jill Malone, Sally Bellerose, and Hilary Sloin through the Bywater Prize. Which exciting new writer will we find next?
For more information about Bywater Books and the annual Bywater Prize for Fiction, please visit our website.
www.bywaterbooks.com