Eye of a Hurricane

Centering on lesbian relationships, Eye of a Hurricane (1989) is a collection of 13 stories about women and the women in their lives: their scars and sacrifices, and their search for self-knowledge and serenity. Author Ruthann Robson is Professor of Law and University Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York School of Law (CUNY). In addition to her nonfiction writing on constitutional and sexuality issues, Robson has written poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Eye of a Hurricane won the first Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction in 1990. The award honors “culture-driving fiction from LGBT points of view.”

“Learning to See” is the opening story in Eye of a Hurricane. Kittrich works as a freelance photographer to pay the bills, but spends all her spare time in the darkroom, pursuing her own art, “the thing in life she values most.” Kittrich dreams of holding gallery exhibitions and selling her photos so she no longer has to work on assignment. Her Nikon is her “third eye and her first eye.” Her first high-school photo exhibition, “Learning to See,” featured a series of black and white photos. Since then, Kittridge has specialized in photographing “social realities.” She trained herself to view everything, including people, as subjects. Headaches start to impact her work. Kittrich learns she has an inoperable tumor pressing against her optic nerve which can lead to blindness and death. Kittridge unaccountably misses a great photo op when she hesitates while watching a black teenager next to a black hearse. The boy notices her and approaches. Kittrich realizes he has stepped out of the role of a subject. She begins to wonder what others see in her pictures and imagines what her subjects might say. She feels she has lost her insight and artistic vision.

In “Growing Avocados,” two women live together and share ownership of a home in rural North Florida. Charleen is a philosophy professor at a junior college. She is frustrated at her lack of advancement, the loss of a book deal, and having to go out into the work world to face prejudice because she is a lesbian. Her lover, Deirdre makes silver jewelry. Deirdre misses her old home and her old lover in Miami. Charleen is physically violent and emotionally abusive towards Deidre. After one violent incident, Deidre goes for a walk, wishing her life was back to the way it was before she met Charleen, who always has an excuse and an apology for her abuse. Charleen feels ashamed of her actions but irritated that Deidre does not know what it is like to be called derogatory names. In anger, Charleen packs some of Deidre’s favorite clothes along with her own, and leaves.



Other stories in the collection include “Artichoke Hearts,” a series of vignettes about food and entangled lesbian relationships. In “Paternity,” Kyla is the brave single mother of three children—by separate fathers—who look exactly like her. “Lake Hudson’s Daughter” features teenage Hadley, the daughter of a “famous and fearless lesbian.” Hadley is a fugitive, traveling to different states, and staying with different lesbian couples. Angry with her mom, she is impatient to be eighteen and on her own. Hadley’s mom is in jail because she won’t tell the court where Hadley is: If she does, Hadley’s father will get custody because Hadley’s mother is a lesbian. In “Interviews” freelance writer Clover Leach interviews the lesbian artist, Seaglass, and wishes her own life were different.

“Arva’s Triangles” tells the story of a bookstore owner whose gypsy mother barely escaped the Holocaust. Arva takes in the much younger Colleen, but the two think they are each part of a triangle with the other’s former lovers. “Poverty: A Story” showcases the thoughts and emotions of a diverse group of legal service workers as a hurricane approaches. In “The Floor,” a woman’s former lover handles the euthanization of her elderly dog. College professor Augusta, has a nonmonogamous relationship with her lover, Tina in “The Pool.” Augusta is intimate with the pool woman, who later loses her job, and comes back for revenge. A mango tree narrates “Listen to the Dance of the Mango,” describing the woman who loved her and was raped but learned to dance again, just as the mango was cut down, but grew again from its roots.

In “Lives of a Long-Haired Lesbian: Four Elemental Narrations” Robson follows the life of teenage prostitutes, Anna and Stacie. The girls try waitressing but slip back into whoring under the influence of their pimp Wade. One day, their house catches fire. Anna saves Stacie, who later commits suicide. Anna moves on, renaming herself Anastasia. After her lover, Effie leaves, Anastasia has an affair with a man, resulting in a son, Colin. Calling herself Anna again, she teaches at a day school and has an affair with Ora, one of the children’s mothers, until Ora abruptly tells Anna her husband is returning, and Anna must leave. Finally, renaming herself Anemone, she moves to an island and teaches aerobics because she wants “women to be strong.”



The final story in the collection, “Her and Geronimo,” follows Claire, a retiree, and Geronimo, a virile construction crew leader. Both are drawn each year to a Florida resort to compete for the affection of Sylvana.