"It all begins and ends with females. Females bringing males into the world, then taking them to the grave.--More of the Sorrow. Females who live all their lives in the shadow of fear. Sonny knew the Devil--he brings tears. All she knew of those weeks in late Autumn of that year approaching Millennium--2000 AD-- was that she had been searching through the streets of San Francisco for herself. Like an archeologist through potsherds and relics and old bones; wounds and grief s and bits & pieces of the past. it was a struggle from sun up to sun down. A dyke a humanbeing, an aging biological female with all her aches and complaints. Walking the SOMA in circles in the fog, with the clock in the modernistic belltower a reminder of the urgency of time."

Subtitle on the cover of this books reads: A Religious Lesbian Novel. It does have some spirituality: "Ultimately it was not the callous nights of sexual passion or SM flogging with black whips (& the cat-of-9-tails of preference)-- but love, shown through their loyalty. Romance, friendship, sex, nasty acts, and beyond this--agape--a gift from God. Love--a gift of pure gold--not to loose this." In this large novel even Mother Teresa makes a appearance. Don t get the wrong idea, it has a lot of hot sizzling sex scenes as well. It s both! There are discussions of her mixed-race status: "Dark brown--curly hair, perpetually tanned skin; could be Italian, or Indian or Greek. I can be anything. When I was a kid, each time I ran away from that home I was sent to foster care and raised there for months--as a white. I m nothing... I m nothing.."

"The Madonna must have saw her crying. Sitting all alone. Bitterly thinking; there must be a way to take care of our needs, I seen too many lesbians crying over their needs. Unmet. "--Because by Her Grace, this woman, Foxy came to brighten up Sonny s dark hours. Sonny one so blue, I love you. The Madonna must have saw her crying inside; underneath the stern face, scuttling down darkened streets at night between her house & the gay bar...." There are the fallen times; her brief affair with Wayne when she is homeless, and sex work at the lowest period of her life. Currently, Sonny works a demanding job as a post office mail handler at the San Francisco postal facility. When suddenly... the angst begins... as she is alternately tiered, fearful, angry & triumphant! & searching-- eternally searching...

Red Jordan Arobateau lifts this novels opening line from Dickens: "it was the best of times and the worst of times," ... and then, continues in True Arobateau Style--- "when Sonny wanted to XXXX so bad she could taste it."

It s a fascinating view on a demimonde of lesbian life, a hustlers life. The world of hard butch dike Sonny Zapatta.

Book Review provided by RED JORDAN PRESS, 2005