Are You Two Sisters? is Susan Krieger's candid, revealing, and engrossing account about the intimacies of a lesbian couple. Krieger explores how she and her partner confront both the inner challenges of their relationship and the invisibility of lesbian identity in the larger world.
Using a lively novelistic and autoethnographic approach that toggles back and forth in time, Krieger reflects on the evolution of her forty-year relationship. She describes building a life together, from sharing pets and travels to getting married. Are You Two Sisters? addresses not only questions of gender and sexuality, but also of disability, as the author explores how the couple adapts to her increasing blindness.
Krieger's title comes from a question asked by a stranger outside a remote desert bar as she and her partner Hannah travel in the Southwest. Her apprehension about answering that question suggests how, even after the legalization of gay marriage, lesbianism often remains hidden—an observation that makes Krieger's poignant narrative all the more moving.
Praise for Are You Two Sisters?
"Every lesbian looking for a partner would love to know the secret of successful relationships. In her early book The Mirror Dance, Krieger described themes of belonging and ambivalence in a lesbian community; now she turns that mirror inward for a candid reflection on her own relationship of forty years, from an uncertain beginning to an important place of refuge. With beautiful imagery and an engaging writing style, Krieger describes the highs and lows of two women with very different personalities learning to live together."—Esther Rothblum, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Lesbian Studies
"I could not stop reading this riveting account of traveling through the world in a lesbian relationship. What an honest, engaging, and stunningly written story about the beauty and tensions of being together and separate. The author invites us into her heart, emotions, and head as she seeks to understand reflexively the nuances of a lesbian intimacy. This is a book for all those seeking to understand relationships more deeply and those who appreciate getting lost in an extraordinary autoethnography."—Carolyn Ellis, Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Communication and Sociology at the University of South Florida and author of Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness
About the Author
Susan Krieger is a sociologist, writer, and Research Fellow at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University. She is the author of seven prior books: Hip Capitalism; The Mirror Dance: Identity in a Women's Community; Social Science and the Self: Personal Essays on an Art Form; The Family Silver: Essays on Relationships among Women; Things No Longer There: A Memoir of Losing Sight and Finding Vision; Traveling Blind: Adventures in Vision with a Guide Dog by My Side; and Come Let Me Guide You: A Life Shared with a Guide Dog.
How to Order
Are You Two Sisters? is available from Amazon, Temple University Press, and independent bookstores in paper, cloth, Kindle, and eBook formats.
An audiobook can be enjoyed through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.
Alternative versions for the blind and print disabled can be obtained by contacting the publisher, the author, or Bookshare.
Temple University Press
February 2022, 325 pagesISBN-13: 978-1439922132
$29.95, paper; $110.50, cloth; $29.95 eBook
Subjects: Memoir/Autobiography; Sexuality/Sexual Identity; Women and Gender Studies; Disability Studies/Blindness; LGBTQ; Sociology/Ethnography