Review by Andrea L.T. Peterson
Published by A&M Books, 1997; 336 pp.

When in 1972 Anyda Marchant was forced to retire from practicing law due to health reasons, no one could have predicted that the then-61-year-old would co-found not one, but two independent lesbian presses and publish 14 of her own lesbian novels. But she did. Well, as Sarah Aldridge she did, and she has become one of the most beloved of lesbian authors.

Marchant, who with Muriel Crawford (her partner for 49 years this fall), was instrumental in the founding of Naiad Press in the 70s, recently pulled out of Naiad and together with Crawford founded A & M Books. The second title off of A & M’s presses is Marchant’s 14th Sarah Aldridge novel, Nina in the Wilderness. Nina is classic Aldridge. It evidences the careful attention to detail readers have come to expect, the complex emotional challenges Aldridge’s characters are consistently confronted with, and the kind of pure romance that is almost unique to Aldridge among lesbian novelists.

In keeping with the 90’s and the approach of a new century, Aldridge, now in her mid-80s, has a bit more physical intimacy between characters—or the implication of it—but still, much if not most is left to the imagination of readers. And most readers, it is safe to say, appreciate this about Aldridge’s work.

Nina is a young woman who, several years before the story begins, is the sole survivor of a plane crash in which her parents are killed. She is found by natives in the Costa Rican jungle and is finally brought to safety then returned to the United States where she receives in-depth psychiatric care.

The story revolves around Nina, her long-deceased aunt Albertine’s poetry, and Annie Trewarden and her father, Gerald Trewarden, the renown Nobel peace prize-wining poet and mentor to Albertine. Nina and Annie meet when Nina seeks out Gerald Trewarden in an attempt to locate her mother (whose death Nina cannot accept).

Trewarden is about to be nominated for another Nobel Prize and the authorship of "Last Words for My Lover," the poem for which he is nominated, is in question. Did Trewarden write it? Or was it written years earlier by his student Albertine? Can claims that it is Albertine’s be proven? Can Trewarden’s son protect his father and his father’s reputation?

Can Annie juggle her feelings for Nina and Nina’s need for a safe space wherein she might heal? Is the investigation of the origin of "Last Words" as dangerous as it seems? Who will discover the truth? And how?

Unlike Aldridge’s other novels, there is a bit more mystery to Nina in the Wilderness and, it seems, a larger cast of indispensable characters. But, once again, this is a most enjoyable story told as only Aldridge could tell it. And, while there are areas that would not suffer from a bit of tightening up, Aldridge’s painstaking attention to detail is not for naught.

One of the first lesbians to write to shatter the myth that "the guy always gets the girl in the end" or the girl must be punished or die if she is a lesbian, Aldridge has just successfully completed her 14th happy-ending lesbian novel. Nina in the Wilderness is thoroughly enjoyable and extremely easy to recommend, whether during that rainy day curled up inside or for that day at the beach.

The review of Nina in the Wilderness by Andrea L.T. Peterson was first published in the August 1997 edition of Lambda Book Report and is reprinted with permission.

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7/25/97 Issue.
Copyright © 1997 by CAMP Rehoboth, Inc. All rights reserved.