Lifestyles

by Jackie Calhoun

Book Overview

lesbian fiction This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0941483576
• ISBN13: 9780941483575
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Naiad Pr
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

A Book That Has it All...

Although it was first published 15 years ago, I have only just had the pleasure of reading this book for the first time. I am always amazed at the talent of this wonderful writer. Calhoun has longevity and this story is a great example of why. In 'Lifestyles,'Calhoun mixes in hetero infidelity, sexual awakening, gays, lesbians, acceptance, intolerance, AIDS, and more to deliver an engaging story this reader didn't want to put down. Kate Sweeny, long-married to a man who leaves her for a younger woman, moves into her family's cabin on the lake. There she meets Pat Thompson, a woman whose relationship with her lover is on the rocks. Kate suspects Pat is a lesbian and is reluctant to get involved. However, the women slowly enter into a deepening friendship. Kate's daughters like Pat... her son isn't as accepting. In the meantime, Kate meets Bert Holloway -- the local mortician, and a man in search of a wife. Adding to the mix is Gail, Pat's lover. Gail is immediately jealous of Kate, a reaction that strains an already fragile relationship. Gail announces one day that her new girlfriend is moving in to the apartment she shares with Pat. Pat turns to friends, including Kate, who help her get through the troubling situation. To top things off, Kate discovers her brother Gordie has AIDS. Gordie's long-time, younger lover dies suddenly from the disease, and Gordie eventually loses his valiant fight against the horrible disease. There are many minor story lines, but the love story between Kate and Pat overshadows them all. This is a true classic that will stay on my personal shelf to be read again and again.

Probably her best

Lifestyles is Jackie Calhoun's first book and, for those of you like me who have read her others, ironically it might be her best. There is much more character and plot development than you typically find in a Calhoun book. Her central figures are Kate and Pat. Kate arrives at the family lake home running from a failed marriage of 24 years. Somehow, without her noticing, her husband has fallen in love with a much younger woman. Kate doesn't know what else to do but get away. At the lake she meets Pat, who is in the midst of a crumbling relationship of her own. They start out as good friends who enjoy sailing, swimming and just talking about things. This book covers a time span of almost two years, so you get a real chance to see things develop. Kate is trying to define her relationships with a number of people - her grown children, her estranged brother who returns to her life just in time to discover he's dying of AIDS, the mortician who wants to marry her, her dead parents, but most of all Pat. You get a good, but little less clear picture of Pat who is also trying to figure out where she went wrong in her relationship with Gail, but more importantly is trying to understand the pull she is feeling towards Kate. It's a well developed story and gives some very real glimpses of what just plain every day life is like when everything seems to be falling apart around you. If you like Calhoun's work, you'll really like this one.