A review by foggy_rosamund
Patience and Sarah, by Isabel Miller

5.0

Oh. Oh I didn't expect this to be so perfect. It's the lesbian story I've been longing for -- where "The Well of Loneliness" was too chaste and too painful and "The Price of Salt" too prickly and too sad, "Patience and Sarah" heals and delights. I am not trying to dismiss those other lesbian classics when I mention them, but to say that "Patience and Sarah" is altogether a warmer, happier, more optimistic book than any either of them. Set in the 1810s, in puritan New England, the characters certainly face hardships, oppression, and loss, but they also find solace in one another and in building a life for themselves. Told in alternating first person POV, both characters, Patience and Sarah, have a unique and arresting voice, and thought they are well-matched, they are very different people. From the first, Miller absolutely captured me, and I was desperately rooting for their love. They are so kind to one another and so determined to be good to one another. Miller has a wonderful ear for dialogue, both internal and external, and creates fantastically believable conversations, quarrels and jokes between Patience and Sarah. She is also a very sensual writer, and her writing about erotic love is both moving and delightful. This book reminds me of the important of love -- of the determination of lesbian women everywhere, and how proud I am of the relationships we have had with one another, despite the adversity we face.

I did not read this book, though I knew of it, for a long time, because I was a story about lesbians set in 1810 would depress me. How wrong I was! This book is a solace and an affirmation, and I recommend it without question.