Thank you for calling the lesbian line

Lovatt opens her first book by naming its limitations: "I can never capture the totality of lesbian experience. I see this as a good thing." Her project engages deeply with a logbook from a community-run phone line for women operating out of London Friend, one of the earliest LGBT charities in the UK. Handwritten entries from the volunteers who took calls from 1993--98 become starting points for Lovatt's wide-ranging, researched considerations of lesbian lives past, present, and her own. The combination of nuance with moral clarity makes her work special. For example, readers are to be done with sentiments that exclude trans and intersex lesbians and lesbians with disabilities. Additionally, she parses out films that offer lesbian sex for the straight gaze versus for a lesbian audience and addresses crucial topics that make lesbians "look bad," including racism, violence, and abuse within the community. Lovatt's worthy, thoughtful book succeeds in taking the Lesbian Line of the nineties, with multitudes talking to multitudes, and recreating it on the page for us all to learn.

Lovatt's heartfelt debut draws on a 1990s logbook for the Lesbian Line, a London-based volunteer-run helpline for queer and questioning women, to expound on issues continuing to face the LGBTQ+ community and her own experiences as a lesbian. Scouring Islington's Pride archives, Lovatt discovered a deceptively "ordinary-looking notebook" that, through the jotted notes from Lesbian Line volunteers about their calls, revealed a world where "women could speak truthfully and privately without fear of being rejected." Captivated by the support given to callers and imagining how the Lesbian Line could have helped her come out before her late 20s, Lovatt combines historical research on LGBTQ+ helplines with personal recollections, sociopolitical commentary, and semi-fictionalized accounts of calls--including from closeted housewives, out teens and their homophobic parents, and repeat callers like "Becky," a disabled woman struggling to access transportation services. Though the merging of genres can sometimes frustrate, particularly when Lovatt delves into contemporary topics like online subcultures, it also serves a purpose, as she aims to expose the many gaps in lesbian history and find creative ways to bridge them. Lovatt also doesn't shy away from showing how the Lesbian Line, staffed by white cis women, fell short when it came to offering services to trans women and queer women of color. The result is a clear-eyed and moving addition to the still-expanding record of lesbian lives. (May)

Bringing the often-hidden history of lesbians into the open. "The serious hurdle about trying to figure out who you are--or even just who you fancy--is that you only have yourself to go on," writes Lovatt of her challenges questioning her sexuality in her late 20s. She had dated men, but never been in love. She felt attracted to women, but did she want to be them or be with them? How to parse through these questions? Well, in the late 20th century, a phone service known as the "Lesbian Line" existed. Founded in the 1970s and thriving into the early internet era, this line and others like it emerged in Britain to deal with questions like these. The volunteers handled everything from young girls kicked out of their parents' homes to women in heterosexual marriages suspecting they might be in love with their best friends. Lovatt builds a chosen family from this archive, sorting through decades of phone logs to report their stories. Due to repression, much of lesbian history is hidden history, and Lovatt writes that she felt like "an amateur lesbian sleuth" uncovering the queer past. Interspersed is Lovatt's own coming out journey, plus research on lesbian pop culture in the time of the phone lines. Though the book is at times disappointingly introductory, scraping the surface of intersectionality without adding new depth, it strives to be as inclusive as possible in all definitions of "lesbian." Summarizing the still-poignant ideas of key thinkers like Audre Lorde and bell hooks as well as a wlw--women loving women--TikTok feed, it covers a lot of ground. Even if some readers may wish for more radical thought or thorough research, the book nonetheless does admirable work for lesbian history and will nourish many young lesbians as well as those seeking to learn more about the community. A journey into the lesbian archives makes a modern declaration of love to queer folks throughout time. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.