Abstract
Are you two sisters? employs an interesting style to accomplish the author's stated goal, that of “exploring the intimacies of a lesbian couple” (p. 1). The book is both intimate and deeply personal, while also a sociological study of life as a lesbian in the United States through a period of dynamic political and social change. Dr Krieger (a research fellow at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University) has published other books—more personal ones about the loss of sight and living with a guide dog, and more sociological ones about lesbian women's relationships in communities and in families. This is the first of her books to combine both approaches. The intimate/personal theme is slightly skewed by her use of a pseudonym for Krieger's partner, Hannah Golden. Krieger does give Hannah a voice through what we assume are accurate representations of their conversations over the years from the beginning of their relationship through their last trip to the Southwest, when the incident that provided the book's title took place. One might expect the combination of personal and sociological perspectives to be difficult to achieve, but apparently it is not. Krieger manages it and makes it look easy.
The title stems from an encounter between Dr Krieger and a bar patron in New Mexico that prompted some trepidation on Krieger's part about personal safety, but also introspection about how lesbian couples are perceived by others and themselves. Krieger says the question initiated within her a cascade of angst over what she should have replied, her actual response (she said and did nothing), and her effort to try to understand why she chose to respond as she did. “I should have had the nerve to speak” (p. 1). The key question Krieger addresses in her book is—“What difference does it make that the two women are lesbians?” (P. 2), and then, ”What can the reader learn from Krieger and her partner's journey to become and live as a lesbian couple?”
If the reader's goal is to learn about and understand a lesbian relationship between two academic professionals, Are You Two Sisters? is a good roadmap full of descriptive material about how their relationship evolved and what obstacles were overcome. In the first chapter (Our Marriage Day) Krieger reminisces about her initial meeting in 1980 on a university campus in California 40 years earlier with the woman she calls Hannah Golden. Thus we are reassured that there is a happy ending following the construction of a long, strong relationship that successfully triumphed over obstacles that are in many ways typical to academic couples—where to live together, who will commute further to work, whose pets will be replaced when they die, and how chores are divided. Issues about disability and how that impacts relationships also come into play as Dr Krieger gradually loses most of her sight, and the couple's relationship and household tasks shift again to accommodate that transition.
A key strength of the book is Krieger's openness in sharing her own lesbian identity journey, from her initial self-doubts, “(F)or me, lesbianism feels often tied to my sense of inner vulnerability” (p. 51), to how much stronger she now feels in her interactions with the world as part of an acknowledged lesbian couple. Despite her reduced concerns about her lesbian identity, Krieger still seems hyper-aware that lesbian lives are “often ‘under the radar’” (p. 6) until and unless they choose to be visible. The narrative style is very engaging, as is the author. (Of course, there's an interview between Krieger and Dr Shelley Correll, Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, available on YouTube in which this book is discussed.) Are you two sisters? is also a bit of a travel guide to the Southwest, especially New Mexico, as well as a convincing demonstration of how to succeed as an academic couple.
