GLR July-August 2024

claimers,” Norman marks the beginning of the Pagoda’s decline. In 1995, civic oppo nents finally prevailed, resulting in a new bridge that brought traffic right to the en trance of the Pagoda. Besides causing car crashes into the gates and cottages, the

did it last for so long?” One response is un questionably its offer of sanctuary in diffi cult times. The author offers the useful historical reminder that “in the 1970s and ’80s, coming out could mean losing your job, your family, even custody of your chil

THEPAGODA A Lesbian Community by the Sea by Rose Norman Sinister Wisdom. 376 pages, $18.95

bridge brought development and the beginning of the transition from a hippie beach to an upscale development. Norman ob serves of the bridge: “It was a very literal reminder of how alarmingly fragile their small enclave was, and how easily in vaded.” Climatic disruption also occurred in the form of wild fires in July 1998 that hurt business, though Norman clarifies: “Pagoda women disagree about whether the wildfires were the tipping point in Pagoda finances.” The third blow came in 1999 when Morgan announced by letter that she was moving the Temple of Love to her new location in Alabama. “Afterstories,” the book’s last section, records the unsuc cessful efforts of four women calling themselves the Fairy Godmothers, Inc. to save the Pagoda. After trying for five years, the time frame the women had set for themselves, the group concluded that the property was just too expensive to maintain. Most members had dispersed by then, some to the Alapine community in Alabama. Norman describes the cir cumstances that led to the Pagoda’s dissolution. “Plagued by financial worries, and living in different towns, they struggled financially and with one another and tenants and neighbors, until they faced the fact that the property had become a bur den.” When they put the available land and the former church up for sale, various factors caused it to stay on the market for eleven years. Finally, however, though the Godmothers had valiantly held on for sixteen years, the property sold in 2016 to a male “old surfer hippie” who owned properties in the area and hoped to live there. In reflecting on the last years of the Pagoda, Norman wisely reframes the question from “Why did it have to end?” to “How

dren.” She provides concrete examples of Pagoda residents who had undergone such discrimination. One woman had been suspended from her high school teaching job in Georgia when her lesbian identity became an issue. Another had lost her job as the state coordinator for battered women’s services in Ver mont due to homophobia about her lesbian identity. Norman captures the spirit of healing and community in other contexts aswell: When mica (Meri Furnari) had knee surgery and was inca pacitated for six months, the community took care of her, “visiting, bringing food, and cheering me up and rooting me on.” When Garnett Harrison visited after fleeing her home state of Mississippi in fear of her life, she found sanctuary, healing space. When resident Emily Greene experienced se rious emotional problems from her work as director of nurs ing at a local nursing home, Pagoda women brought her mother and sister from Massachusetts to visit and got Emily professional therapy. While the healing spirit that pervaded the Pagoda was one reason for the community’s longevity, another was the pleasure of living in a community at the beach. Norman quotes one res ident as saying: “Women came for the beach and the concerts; they stayed for the community.” Musician June Millington cap tures the magical spirit of the place in her reflection that “It was like being in a conch shell or something. And you could hear the echoes resounding from all time, really, if you just listened.” That feminist spirituality was a key feature of the early years is reflected in the Pagoda’s joyful motto that also summarizes life there: “Every day there is a song, every night a gift of love, every moon a celebration.” Rose Norman has spent a decade research

A Passionate Connection to the Natural World

ing this book, for which she collected a “moun tain of interview material,” as is evident from the breadth of her coverage and scrupulous at tention to detail. While some readers may feel unnecessarily burdened by information involv ing easements, quit-claims, taxes, and so forth, she is not shy about sharing this information freely, presumably for the benefit of future archivists and historians. Similarly, I respect her gesture of naming all the participants of the Pagoda over the years, but I have to admit it can get confusing. The book is admirably thorough, providing ample footnotes, lists of plays and concerts, and interviews. There’s a chronology, a section of brief biographies of Pagoda women, and an excellent index. These features are in valuable tools for future scholars. On balance, The Pagoda represents an important contribu tion in the effort to write this episode into the record of lesbian herstory, a place it where it cer tainly belongs.

She shines like sun somewhere for me alone. I walk her path and meet her at the eye. Her ocean crashes on my feet, her moan of dunes a sign, her lips a butterfly. Somewhere I haven’t been, her basketful of silver doves, her coo come on, let’s go. Her night falls slow. I feel her tender pull of eagerness, the way her breezes flow

through hills and mountains, every desert being her rain makes grow. Her crescent moon, her stars make me a flock of robins winter-fleeing and trilling round her earth. Somewhere of ours, somewhere, somewhere, her fields of Queen Anne’s lace, her common stems, the heal-all of her face.

M ARY M ERIAM

TheG & LR

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