Sage Sweetwater pens LORAINE LEATHERBOW: THE HOUSE OF SPLEEN, another lesbian pulp fiction novel, brainchild of Sage Sweetwater Creative Properties, flagship of Stone Creek Woman
Spiritual magic of voodoo born out of Africa's Slave Coast ...
LORAINE LEATHERBOW: THE HOUSE OF SPLEEN has been written with a strong leaning toward the fate of the modern-day coyote, running the gamut of interracial partnerships, past and present, to the cultivation of the yam and the spiritual ties that bind cultures through shamanism and voodoo.
The many elements and ideas in this novel, like all of my novels are the things that are important to me, where my beliefs lie in the words, coming from the beautiful grains of pink-tinted sand dug from deep places from within. What a lap full of proverb cloth this novel will make; "Take the bitter with the sweet...and call it good." (Sage Sweetwater)
SYNOPSIS
LORAINE LEATHERBOW: THE HOUSE OF SPLEEN is a feminist/lesbian novel bent on the spiritual magic of voodoo. The yam is one-fourth of the novel's taproot... planted, harvested, and prepared with old-world simplicity.
Some say she's a medicine woman and some say she's a zombie priestess born out of Africa's Slave Coast. The truth is she's somewhere in between the bring-down-the-house soul sing and the buckskin skirt oar traveler. Loraine Leatherbow is a middle-aged lesbian woman mixed of shackle and scalp heritage. Her African-Negro mother's people were slaves given asylum by her father's Native American people. She's tall, light-dark, and handsome. Her skin is a bronzed cocoa with a copper cast primer undercoat, told that she does not fit the stereotypical rotund shape or blackness of a voodoo priestess.
Loraine uses a pig spleen to cleanse spirit, field, and stable, removing evil infestations, curing sick animals and hushing womens' scrambled minds.
She is the coyote whisperer who communicates with the coyotes telepathically when they are missing from the village, freeing them from traps and cross-hairs with her voodoo.
Originally from New Orleans, she meets young Jolie at Mardi Gras, seduces her with powder from the dried flesh of the hummingbird, then follows young Jolie who is a proud lesbian yam farmer who lives in Arizona.
* * * * * * * *
Copyright 2006 Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist, brainchild of Sage Sweetwater Creative Properties, flagship of Stone Creek Woman
Excerpt
Spirituals are the foundation for all kinds of music. Out of spirituals come gospel, out of gospel comes blues, out of blues comes jazz, out of jazz comes Bille Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and out of it all comes Loraine's dreadlocks and penchant for speaking her mind and telling others truths whether they want to hear it or not. "And you see this to be a problem?" she finally confronted the woman who made a nasty habit of walking the alley accusing Loraine of being a "crazy black dyke and voodoo fraud."
Mental state, complexion and sexual preference are all being slandered here and Loraine's soul is being tested to the limits. She put on a spiritual and offered the woman a tumbler of bourbon as well as a colorful new headcloth that Izzy sent from the Tihamah plain, the same way the more humane captains on the slave ships on the better-managed vessels plied the slaves with music and drumbeating, encouraging singing and dancing, and rum as well as pipes and tobacco, and beads for the women to adorn themselves with, presuming that contented slaves would be obedient.
The waspish lady tossed back the bourbon and swallowed without even a palatable swish. Loraine had found something the lady liked. "I'll have another if you got it," the lady said. Loraine poured her another and then laid out the rules. "The House of Spleen will not tolerate bigotry or slanderous remarks. Until you have seen the white coats haul me away in a straight jacket to the mental ward, do not call out to me that I am crazy; until you hear the story of my black heritage, you do not have the right to see my color; until you see my lips passionately attached to another woman's lips, do not call me a dyke; when you have to steal a piece of my roof, salt it and urinate on it to get out of the black camp, you will not think my voodoo a fraud. This is why not to wear pockets, for they are just a way to hide the truths---squares sewn on three sides concealing what is inside."
|
