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Four paragraphs, cause that's the limit before you violate copyright...
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Twisted Sister
by The Plaid Adder
We are all approaching Thanksgiving battered and bruised, wondering how we are going to choke down our turkey and stuffing as our throats constrict with remorse and grief. We wanted this to be a _real_ thanksgiving; but in the end we could not save ourselves, our country, or the world from another four years of George W. Bush and his gang. But we can still find things to be thankful for. I am always thankful for the friendship and support of all my fellow-DUers; and this year I would like to thank them for their generosity as well. For it is thanks to one of my fellow DUers--a woman named Lisa who is lucky enough to be living in Canada right now--that I have been able to distract myself from the very, very, very bad news coming out of Iraq this week by reading some quality fiction penned by one of America's foremost women of letters.
Yes, from my description you must know I can be speaking of none other than legendary prose stylist and towering intellectual giant Lynne Cheney, the woman who has done for the National Endowment of the Humanities what our army just did for Fallujah. Years before she rode into Washington on her white horse, six-shooters loaded with righteous indignation, to clear the varmints out, Mrs. Cheney amused herself by writing fiction. Sadly, most of it has been languishing in obscurity; her novels are out of print, and her official biography at whitehouse.gov, which mentions many of the books she's written in support of her intellectual-cleansing project, omits any mention of her distinguished career as a novelist. But true devotees of Mrs. Cheney's work have at least rescued one of her novels from the remainder bin of history.
This would be _Sisters_, published in 1981 by Signet as part of their New American Century--I'm sorry, New American _Library_ imprint. After disappearing into obscurity, the book made headlines briefly when its publishers considered re-issuing it once Cheney rose to her current Olympian heights. Alas, Cheney convinced them to reconsider, claiming the novel was "not her best work." Not being familiar with the rest of Mrs. Cheney's _oeuvre_ I am in no position to judge; however, Mrs. Cheney's embarrassment probably had more to do with the book's content than with any imperfections of style or form. _Sisters_ includes a storyline involving a love affair between the protagonist's sister and her former schoolmarm--a topic hardly liable to endear Mrs. Cheney to the cadre of religious-right fanatics who now own her husband's miserable carcass.
Actually, the religious right would be no more pleased with the heterosexual plot line. Though decidedly not a lesbian, the novel's protagonist, Sophie Dymond, is meant to be a thoroughly liberated woman. On her way to becoming the owner of a large publishing empire, Sophie has, among other things, run away from her convent school with an acting troupe, spent several years in a _menage a trois_ with her first husband and her lover, divorced said first husband in order to marry said lover, and become a dedicated user and tireless advocate of contraception.
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The rest comes Wednesday,
The Plaid Adder
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