GLR November-December 2025

wood’s character, including his being an unrepentant misogynist and anti-Semite. Isherwood’s misogyny can easily be traced to his fraught relationship with his mother, but that’s no excuse for the vehemence of his disdain for all women. In a review of Dodie Smith’s novel A Tale of Two Families , he dismisses her writing as “smugly cunty” and says of women writers: “They know that there is nothing … outside of the furry rim of their cunts and their kitchens.” Nasty stuff, as unsettling as his blatant anti-Semitism, especially in the Diaries , where it runs rampant. He lived in Berlin through the period of Hitler’s rise to power and saw the horrific treatment of Jews at the hands of the Nazis, and he worked closely and socialized with Jewish artists during his Hol lywood years. Considering that life experience, Isherwood’s anti Semitism is as surprising as it is disgusting. Honoring his promise to give equal space to Isherwood’s writing, Poller offers informed, insightful perspectives, particu larly attentive to his use of various literary techniques. In addition to his lengthy discussion of Isherwood’s autofiction technique, he also discusses his use of “tea-tabling.” Poller quotes Edward

Upward, who first discerned the technique in the work of E. M. Forster: “Forster’s technique is based on the tea-table: instead of trying to screw all his scenes up to the highest possible pitch, he tones them down until they sound like mothers’-meeting gossip. … In fact, there’s actually less emphasis laid on the big scenes than on the unimportant ones.” Events of this nature occur off stage, out of sight; we learn about them only through others’ re actions to them. In Goodbye to Berlin , Sally’s abortion, the Nazis’ murderous rampages, Christopher’s and Max’s sexual relation ship all occur off-stage; we learn about them from others. In A SingleMan , the car crash that takes the narrator’s lover occurs not only off-stage but before the narrative opens. Tea-tabling softens the blow for even the poshest reader. I can think of no writer besides Isherwood whose fictional work so deeply, so clearly mines his own life. Poller’s perceptive readings of Goodbye to Berlin , Prater Violet , Lions and Shadows , Christopher and His Kind , and the Diaries , and his understanding of their links to Isherwood’s life, make for a concise, informative, entertaining introduction to this essential writer.

An Activist’s Advice for Activists

M UCH LIKE her four-decade careers in literature and ac tivism, Sarah Schulman’s The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity is an act of radical compassion. Throughout her career, Schulman has risked her reputation, financial security, publish ing contracts, and even her safety for the causes she advocated. Despite putting her

would be appalled to learn that Jews in Is rael are doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to them. Schulman’s key assertion is that soli darity must not be thought of as saintly but rather functional and achievable in practi cal steps. In this respect her book serves as a guide or instruction manual in which she enumerates the main components one

B RIAN A LESSANDRO

THE FANTASY AND NECESSITY OF SOLIDARITY by Sarah Schulman Thesis / Penguin. 320 pages, $30.

self well outside her comfort zone for most of her life, Schul man’s new book is barely about her own life and work; it is primarily devoted to other, lesser-known activists around the world who have struggled to advance solidarity movements with numerous oppressed groups. Before Schulman gets to the book’s focus—the genocidal campaign Israel has pursued against Palestinians, which she began addressing as an activist in 2009—she reflects on her life long crusades on behalf of other causes. Those include abor tion, LGBT equality, Black peoples’ rights, labor unions, and HIV activism, which she supported through her work with ACT UP. The reflection on her rigorous solidarity initiatives is never self-aggrandizing or preachy, and much less about bragging than about providing context and comparison. The author places herself in the center of the action as some one who has faced bigotry and marginalization throughout her career. As a lesbian writer, she shares her long history of men, both gay and straight, Jewish and gentile, in publishing and the ater, who have “humiliated, ghosted, and degraded” her. She also writes transparently about her Jewish identity and her ex perience of learning how America’s antisemitism had facilitated the Holocaust, stating that her Jewish parents and grandparents Brian Alessandro co-edited Fever Spores: The Queer Reclamation of William S. Burroughs (Rebel Satori Press). November–December 2025

should consider when undertaking a solidarity movement. Those include getting organized, imposing guidelines, setting goals, establishing strategy, having constant discussions, finding areas of agreement, abiding by protocol, practicing self-criticism, ex ercising awareness, remaining conscious, listening attentively, and building alliances. Also, patience is non-negotiable. It is ego tistical and counterproductive to believe that dramatic change will occur quickly. In the case of Palestine, the process must be incremental given the size of the opposition—the U.S.’s unwa vering support for Israel and its hold on the United Nations. Per haps this speaks to the “fantasy” component of the title. One must take a hardnosed, pragmatic approach to getting things &BOOKLOVERS READERS ATTENTION Tim’s Used Books 242 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA timsusedfilms@gmail.com | 508-487-0005 | Open year-round. Are TIM’S USED BOOKS of Provincetown has been traveling throughout the Northeast since 1991, buying book collections, large and small. Scholarly, gay interest, the arts—all genres. Immediate payment and removal.

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