Bogeywoman (Sun & Moon Classics)

In her third work of fiction, Jaimy Gordon takes on the difficult subject of a young girl who, coming of age and "coming out" sexually, falls in love with an older woman and through the process of their relationship is cured. We first witness Gordon's young heroine in a girl's camp, where she escapes the boundaries of the camp and the boundaries of propriety as she is found to have, in self-hatred, carved messages in her arms. In the psychiatric ward of a hospital, the Bogeywoman - as she comes to be called - joins the other misfits in creating a musical group and in general mischief-making, including the heist of a nitrogen oxide machine and the accidental burning of her beloved and anorexic friend. Locked away, she comes in contact with the strange and exotic psychiatrist Madame Zuk, and it is love at first sight. Gradually, the two develop a friendship that explodes into a love affair resulting, in turn, in a marvelous voyage of self-discovery that will remind one of Dickens' Oliver Twist mixed with Nabokov's Lolita.