Lesbian Triptych

Julie Rekai Rickerd is a Toronto broadcaster and public relations
consultant.

The very title of Jovette Marchessault’s newly translated collection of short stories, Lesbian Triptych, is a challenge. In fact, the volume might be dubbed confrontational feminism at its best. Quebec novelist Marchessault’s characters set out to change history to herstory. Novelist, essayist, and playwright Marchessault is determined to rewrite creation and to punish those who have withheld the truth for so long.

A Lesbian Chronicle from Medieval Quebec recounts the struggles of an extraterrestrial Lesbianchild, thrust into a deadly world of “patriarchal concentration camps,” to survive. Using his, or rather, her story and archeology as terms of reference, Marchessault creates her heroine as a “woman warrior” determined to march, victorious, from the battle against the Church and a “male-worshipping society.” She refuses to surrender to brainwashing by “sadistic ceremonies of Christianity that constantly violate the female spirit and mind.” She revolts against the betrayal of women by both men and women who have been “conditioned by male ideology.”

In Night Cows and The Angel Markers, Marchessault continues her onslaught against all things male, past or present, and blames all women’s woes on the enemy, men. In these stories, the Lesbianchild is joined by her greatest ally, Lesbianmother, and together they strive to build a brave new feminist world from the ashes of condemned patriarchal tradition.

Enclosed by a lengthy Introduction by Barbara Godard and a “Postface” by Gloria F. Orenstein, both professors of literature and women’s studies, Marchessault’s stories are hostile and leave a taste of overkill. The works are devoid of humor and evoke a sense of discomfort and embarrassment rather than inspiring a call to arms. In essence, Marchessault’s vision in Lesbian Triptych adds little to the battle of the sexes for supremacy.