Lesbianism and Gender

After Sappho revolves around a boundless community of lesbians, mainly in the 19th and 20th centuries; throughout the narrative Schwartz presents lesbianism—and queer love more generally—as a lovely and often covert action. Early in the novel, the collective narrator describes the quiet meetings between lesbians. The narrator states, “We arrived in unknown cities, in the ports of southern islands, at the houses of anyone appearing to be a sister. We shuddered and threw off our names. We began to find each other, slowly at first because we were so new. You would see someone in the street, someone like X, and wonder and know at the same time…” (43). Here, Schwartz describes a beautiful and inarticulable connection between many of the lesbians in the novel. The characters feel a subtle, indescribable pull towards one another; they “wonder and know at the same time...