Contemporary Literary Criticism | Paretsky, Sara - Rebecca A. Pope (essay date 1995)

Rebecca A. Pope (essay date 1995)

SOURCE: “‘Friends Is a Weak Word for It’: Female Friendship and the Spectre of Lesbianism in Sara Paretsky,” in Feminism in Women's Detective Fiction, edited by Glenwood Irons, University of Toronto Press, 1995, pp. 156-69.

[In the following essay, Pope analyzes the approach/withdraw orientation towards lesbianism that she asserts exists in Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski detective series, focusing on the relationship between Warshawski and her best friend Dr. Lotty Herschel.]

The opening chapter of Sara Paretsky's seventh V. I. Warshawski novel, Guardian Angel, is titled ‘Sex and the Single Girl.’ Here is the first paragraph: ‘Hot kisses covered my face, dragging me from deep sleep to the rim of consciousness. I groaned and slid deeper under the covers, hoping to sink back into the well of dreams. My companion wasn't in the humor for rest; she burrowed under the blankets and continued to...

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