When Evelyn and Ann slowly fall for one another (or fall for one another and slowly admit it), we’re all convinced Evelyn will leave at the end of the six weeks, maybe even returning to heterosexuality.

Ann, related in a complicated way to Frances, and Walter, Frances’ son, are the only other two regular residents, the rooms filled with a shifting population of women who stay for six weeks, have a court hearing and leave. She comes to stay in Frances’ boarding house to accomplish getting a divorce, as that and gambling are the two mainstay industries of Reno. We meet Evelyn, fleeing an unsuccessful marriage where she feels she is the culprit in it going wrong, her husband lost in a miasma of depression. Within it she could move with a kind of candor Ann could neither imitate nor reject. But decorum was a climate in which Evelyn lived. If Evelyn had been either indiscreet or distant, she would have known what to do. Of course, finishing in September, I’ve failed at both of those attempts, but never mind, eh?Īnn stood, awkward and defenseless. I pulled this from slightly later in my TBR to read for All Virago / All August and the LibraryThing Virago Group’s August theme read of journeys (the central character has travelled from California to Reno to get a divorce and she also has a journey through her own sexuality). However, it was very interesting, and the excellent introduction by Jackie Kay set it very well in its context. I’m not entirely sure what I’ve been doing since the beginning of the month – a fair bit of work and some emergency plumbing, I fear, but this is the first book I’ve finished in September! I borrowed it from Ali in October last year after she reviewed it in July here, and I’m not sure if it was down to the fragmented way I read it but I don’t think I loved it as much as she did.

Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule