Someday I need to start keeping track of where I find out about the books I put on my reading list, because this is definitely not the typical book for me to read. Which is a good thing, so thank you random person who recommended it to me.

Curious Wine is the story of a women's retreat at a cabin at a Lake Tahoe ski resort, and through encounter games and various intimate conversations share a lot about themselves. Two of the women, Diane and Lane, form a bond that leads to a sexual relationship. The problem is that up to that point they had considered themselves straight and have a lot of things to navigate in order to continue the relationship.

This was one of the first mainstream romance novels about a lesbian relationship by a lesbian author. The novel goes to great lengths to add "respectability" to the relationship by having two white, professional women who've previously had relationships with men as the protagonists who then put a lot of effort into making sure no one can consider their love "just a phase." This was certainly necessary in the early 1980s but feels awkward now. Nevertheless it is a sweet and honest story with well-developed characters. ( )

Pretty cheesy but it was the first lesbian fiction I read, so it holds a special place in my heart. ( )

well, i was a little worried about her writing, but found it to be ok. here and there it was a little overly dramatic but compared to everything else that my lesbian book group has been reading from this time period, she has more talent. (i should say - everything else that is put out specifically for lesbian audiences by a lesbian press.) so i was glad to see that.

but the story was just so implausible all around that i had trouble suspending belief. forrest is a mystery writer so i think she has more imagination than this. reading about these two women was the main point, so the rest of the stuff around it that was extraneous anyway could have been more believable. (which would have made their situation more believable, too, i think.)

that said, i really, really like the character of lane (and kind of wish this was told from her perspective instead of diana's) and enjoyed reading this. it was over the top sweetness, sure, but i actually enjoyed that exploration and found it...well...sweet.

i have quibbles. the women who aren't diana and lane aren't too well drawn, so i found them hard to keep track of (except for liz because she was so strangely hostile and aggressive). that vivian calls herself vivian could hardly have been more annoying. again, the likeliness of some of their conversation and actions was so low as to be distracting when it happened. oh, and i hate the insinuation that lane makes that diana can't be bi, and that she needs diana to fully come out to herself as a lesbian before they can be together. (it was just one sentence and maybe not even what katherine v forrest was saying, but it's how i took it.)

this book filled a huge hole in 1983 and that hole doesn't really exist anymore. the society she writes about mostly doesn't either, and so i think that much of this book isn't relatable anymore, which is fantastic, but this book still has its place, and i still enjoyed reading about these two women and their passion for each other. ( )

“Nothing interesting can possibly happen in a cabin full of women.” So ends the first chapter of Curious Wine, Katherine Forrest’s classic novel of the early 80’s in which 6 women bring their personal issues to a beautiful Tahoe cabin for a weeks skiing in an era when encounter groups were in, padded shoulders were the norm and lesbian romance was definitely still in the closet.

Diane is depressed about breaking up with her boyfriend. As she meets the group she instantly bonds with the gorgeous but cool Lane, high powered lawyer with a trail of downtrodden men. The remaining four women are led by Liz, the angry and bullish “first wife”, Chris her uptight and narrow-minded spinster sister, Millie the aging hippy and Madge who’s too scared of the truth to find out if she is being betrayed. Add into the mix a large quantity of alcohol and some grass; a meltdown is bound to happen.

Needless to say the encounter games don’t go to well, feelings of pain and anger get out of hand and rather than bonding the group ends up hurting each other with truths they don’t want to know. Out of which the sensitive Diane reaches out to Lane for comfort. One thing leads to another and suddenly they are on the verge of a sexual encounter.

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Let me start by saying I LOVE THIS BOOK. Yes its short and obvious and so unrealistic.. but i love the characters, the story is so sweet, and i can fogive the dated games, clothes and behaviour because of what it represents.

Curious Wine was Katherine V. Forrest’s first novel, published in 1983 and is without a doubt a classic. It is one of the groundbreaking novels of its generation, it moved away from the pulp fiction into romance, was solidly about women and was written by a lesbian for lesbians.

Today many reviews criticize it for the soppy and cheesy sex, the paucity of terminology and the unlikelihood of two ‘straight’ women having sex, falling in love and deciding to live happily ever after in 3 days. People – normally women who probably were barely born in 1983 – complain about the ridiculous encounter games, the dated fashions and the shallow plot and characterisation.

But to do so is to take the book out of context. This is a first novel written in a virtual vacuum of lesbian romance. In 1983 women did try to bond in stupid games, they were this nasty to each other – they thought they were ‘helping’ when in retrospect they were destroying each other. At that time there was virtually no current lesbian fiction – the pulp fiction of the 50’s and 60’s was homophobic and frequently written for a sleezy male audience. And the sexual norm of the day was either Deep Throat style porn or uptight bosom heaving Mills and Boon.

If you want to read an novel full of deep characters agonizing over coming out, or compare this to modern sexplicit girl on girl action you will be disappointed. But it is a great novel. It is well worth the read – at 160 pages it wont even take too long. And it deserves the title classic for its groundbreaking exploration of a woman’s reaction to her first lesbian encounter.
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I haven't read this in years but it is just the classic Naiad Romance--one of the first lesbian fiction novels I ever read. ( )