Close to Spider Man

July 1, 2002
From the far reaches of northern Alaska, the 13 brief, interconnected coming-of-age stories of Coyote's debut collection are as blissfully rich as the countryside in which they are set. All the tomboyish female storytellers are assured and absorbing, acutely aware of their emerging lesbianism while strapped with the true knowledge of "what trouble girls really were." In "No Bikini," an unnamed six-year-old narrator is fearlessly aware of her androgynous possibilities and, to the horror of her mother, spends an entire summer sans her bikini top, posing as a boy during swimming lessons. Pushing gender boundaries back even further, a woman applies to legally change her name to Ivan in "You're Not in Kansas Anymore" because Dorothy, her given name, simply "doesn't fit the rest of me." Coyote's vivid descriptions of family gatherings spiked with raw emotion make many of these stories little gems. In the moving tale "This, That, and the Other Thing," the author merges a recipe for spicy chipotle chicken with scenes from her parents' excruciating separation. The emotive "There Goes the Bride" is the anguished inner monologue of a woman attending the heterosexual wedding ceremony of her former lover. Ever proud, but mourning her loss, she finally retreats to a back corner and communes with oddball relatives. Fronted with alluring K.D. Lang album-style cover art, this lean, thoroughly entertaining literary scrapbook of Yukon lesbian life will speak strongly to lesbian readers, but deserves a crossover audience for its surefooted, humorous take on misfit love and familial solidarity.