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13 Lesbian and Bi Characters You Should Know

We love TV and movies at AfterEllen.com, but we also love books – for many of us, our first encounters with a lesbian or bisexual character were in the pages of fiction, not on the big (or small) screen. And since summer, with its hot afternoons on the beach or lazing around in your back yard, is perfect for reading (OK, the rest of the year is good, too!), we thought we’d put together a list of some of our favorite fictional lesbian and bi characters.

The list is limited to 13 characters, which means we’ve left out a lot of memorable women. You may have heard of some of these characters, but some of them may be new to you. They were not necessarily chosen for their significance to literature in general – otherwise we definitely would have included Stephen Gordon of The Well of Loneliness. These are books and characters we’d revisit and reread; characters we’ve loved spending time with.

Of course, we probably left out some of your favorites. Take a look at our list (LeeAnn Kriegh, Heather A. O’Neill and Scribe Grrrl all contributed their favorites) – presented in chronological order – and let us know who we missed.

Hélène Noris The Illusionist by Francoise Mallet-Joris (1951)

In a provincial town in France, 15-year-old Hélène Noris falls in love with Tamara Soulerr, a bisexual Russian emigrant who is not only two decades older but also her father’s mistress. None of this stops Hélène, and the two begin a passionate affair that quickly becomes sadistic. Hélène’s transformation under Tamara is remarkable as she goes from independent and spirited to obsessive and vulnerable.

But in the end, Hélène manages to turn the tables and emerges triumphant: “I looked at her with disgust. On that face I had loved and admired so desperately, that had been my sun, my horizon, the very incarnation of beauty, cruelty, voluptuousness and suffering, all equally delicious, there was painted that odious humility of beggars and beaten women, that cowardice or irresponsible people, that same weakness that I had hated in myself and that she, unknowingly, had taught me to hate. … She seemed to me almost ugly. She had not known how to vanquish me, this time. I no longer admired her.” – Heather A. O’Neill

Therese Belivet The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith (1952)

Patricia Highsmith’s The Price Of Salt became a lesbian cult favorite the instant it was published in 1952; Highsmith has since become best known as the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley. The Price of Salt is about the sexual awakening of Therese Belivet, a young postgraduate living in New York City and trying to break into the world of theater as a set designer. The object of Belivet’s adoration is Carol Aird, an older woman married with a child.

The relationship gets complicated when Aird’s husband threatens to sue for full custody of their daughter by outing his wife, and the two women depart on a spine-tingling road trip. It is on this trip that Belivet’s burgeoning insights into her sexuality truly begin to take shape.

Here, in a hotel room in Waterloo, she records her first intimate experience with Aird: “And now it was pale blue distance and space, an expanding space in which she took flight suddenly like a long arrow. The arrow seemed to cross an impossibly wide abyss with ease, seemed to arc on and on in space, and not quite to stop. Then she realized that she still clung to Carol, that she trembled violently, and the arrow was herself … and she did not have to ask if this was right, no one had to tell her, because this could not have been more right or perfect.” – Heather A. O’Neill

Jaret Tyler Happy Endings Are All Alike, Sandra Scoppettone (1978)

Published in 1978, Happy Endings Are All Alike is the first young adult book with a clearly lesbian main character. And – surprise – Jaret Tyler’s not a closeted and confused soul. She comes out in the first line of the book: “Even though Jaret Tyler had no guilt or shame about her love affair with Peggy Danziger she knew there were plenty of people in this world who would put it down.”

Even as the late 1970s world does its best to send her into a lifetime of therapy, Jaret stays out. The Radcliffe-bound future lawyer perseveres through verbal, emotional and physical assault, remaining strong even as her girlfriend wavers in the face of family and small-town prejudices. The disco-era language may make you laugh, as Jaret deals with some heavy and far-out issues, but the book is a classic – both because of its author’s and Jaret’s remarkable courage. Scoppettone went on to write a popular series of mystery novels featuring lesbian detective Lauren Laurano. – LeeAnn Kriegh

Arden Benbow Faultline (1982) and Southbound (1990) by Sheila Ortiz Taylor

This first novel from poet, author and teacher Sheila Ortiz Taylor is the first lesbian novel featuring a Chicana main character: Arden Benbow, a lesbian involved in a custody battle – with a twist. Faultline, Ortiz Taylor’s first novel, is told through the different perspectives of witnesses at the custody hearing, and is memorable not only for the quirky characteristics of Arden Benbow but her numerous rabbits.

“I realize that my three hundred rabbits are the most serious piece of material evidence against me,” Arden says. “People will think only an unstable mind could not only produce but sustain that kind of absurdity. … But I am going to ask something more of you. I am asking you to keep your eye on the rabbit without forgetting the silk top hat from which the rabbit must eventually emerge.”

In the sequel to Faultline, Southbound, which was published 18 years later, Arden returns – rabbits intact – and heads south with her children and her partner. Reviewing Faultline in 1982, author Jane Rule wrote: “This is a first novel, but it introduces us to an already authoritative voice in our presence whom we will welcome with the celebration she has offered us.” Ortiz Taylor has gone on to write several more novels with Chicana lesbian characters, became Francis G. Townsend Professor of English at Florida State University, and was a recipient of a Fulbright Award. – Malinda Lo

Celie The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)

The central story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple is the evolution of Celie, a young black woman in Georgia. The scale of her personal growth is almost unbelievable when reduced to facts and plot points: From an extremely abusive childhood and marriage, she emerges as a symbol of both independence and community. But in Celie’s life, external developments are secondary to an internal revolution.

Celie’s self-discovery is due in large part to her interactions with women, particularly the blues singer Shug Avery. Shug teaches Celie that her body can be a source of pleasure as well as pain, and that even “ugly” women can inspire songs. Celie realizes that she loves women, but she also realizes she doesn’t really need anyone. Her rocky relationship with Shug becomes a springboard to inner peace: “Shug write me she coming home. I be so calm. If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content. I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.”

Celie’s contentment and strength become the anchor of her community, and by the end of the novel, she reclaims her broken past by reuniting with her long-lost sister and reaffirming her newfound sense of self. – Scribe Grrrl

Liza Winthrop Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden (1982)

In the midst of the biggest ethical challenge of her young and privileged life, Brooklyn-based Liza Winthrop recalls, “I tried to think; I tried so hard to think – but there was only one word in my mind and that word was ‘Annie.'” Anyone who has fallen hard, and especially those who fell early, will recognize themselves in Liza’s account of her awkward, painful and passionate teenage love affair. “It was as if we had found a whole new country in each other and ourselves and were exploring it slowly together,” says Liza.

In this much-celebrated and often-censored young adult book, Liza, an architecture student at MIT, recalls the rise and agonizing fall of her high-school romance with a lovely singer named Annie Kenyon. The sexual peak of that relationship and the positive portrayal of lesbianism throughout led to the book’s burning on the steps of the Kansas City School Board building – surely the highest honor a book with lesbian characters can hope to achieve. – LeeAnn Kriegh

Alice Meadows A Village Affair, Joanna Trollope, 1989)

In the opening pages of A Village Affair, Alice Meadows asks herself how anyone else can feel what you feel, “not being, as it were, on the inside of yourself.” The question haunts Alice the rest of the novel, as her torrid affair with the wealthy and unpredictable Clodagh Unwin (yes, a lesbian named “Unwin” – subtle) has sometimes devastating consequences for Alice as well as her husband, relatives and assorted nosy neighbors in the “much sought-after” village of Pitcombe, England.

This is truly “a village affair,” in which everyone but the repressed Alice seems certain of what Alice feels. “A husband, three children but you aren’t even awake,” Clodagh says to Alice. “You haven’t one clue about how wonderful you are, nor how to live.”

Though a few stereotypes will have you rolling your eyes, Alice rises from a devastating depression and proves herself a complex and memorable character, whose middle-age awakening depends on a heart-wrenching choice between her lover and her family. – LeeAnn Kriegh

Katina “Katchoo” Choovanski Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore (1993-2007)

In life’s dark alleys, Katina “Katchoo” Choovanski is the badass blonde you hope is walking with you and not waiting for you.

After 14 years and more than 2,000 pages of dialogue, diary entries, songs, poems and pictures, fans of the long-running graphic novel series share an uncommon intimacy with the mercurial Katchoo. They know about her busted-up childhood, bad temper and beat-up truck. And they know what matters most to Katchoo is that she loves Francine Peters – loves her with the desperate passion and unrelenting loyalty of a weary soul. “There’s nothing now but my painting,” Katchoo says to Francine, “and all my pictures look like you.”

In a comic book series that encompasses crime, call girls, a plane crash, alcoholism and abuse, the most memorable (and funniest) moments are often the quiet, domestic ones between these two women – one basically a lesbian, the other basically straight – who are so profoundly and achingly in love with one another. – LeeAnn Kriegh

Jean “Stevie” Stevenson Coffee Will Make You Black (1994) and Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice (1996) by April Sinclair (1994)

Set in Chicago’s South Side in the 1960s, Stevie grows up with an alcoholic, janitor father and a conservative, bank-teller mother. She’s eager to be cool and fit in, but being black and from the wrong side of the tracks make that difficult. And though she has a boyfriend, Stevie finds herself attracted to the school nurse, an older white woman. When she asks her mother about gay people, her mother tells her: “Women like that can never be happy. They live sad, lonely, tormented lives.”

But Stevie’s feelings continue to grow, and she tells Nurse Horn that she has a crush on her and worries that she’s going to be a sick, sinning homosexual. Nurse Horn reassures her: “Not all psychiatrists agree that it’s a sickness. And the God I believe in is compassionate and merciful and cares more about how we treat each other than about who we love.”

Though Stevie doesn’t have a same-sex relationship in Coffee Will Make You Black (she does in the sequel, Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice, in which she graduates from college and then visits San Francisco in the 1970s), her coming-of-age story – set in the turbulent, politically charged early years of the civil-rights movement – is affecting and memorable, reflecting many young lesbians’ coming-out experiences. – Malinda Lo

Aud Torvingen The Blue Place (1998), Stay (2002) and Always (2007) by Nicola Griffith

As an 18-year-old Norwegian on her first trip to the United States, Aud Torvingen rents an apartment outside of Atlanta. Her first night in her apartment, sleeping on the floor because she hasn’t yet acquired any furniture, she wakes up to find a man with a gun threatening her. Without thinking, she grabs the flashlight next to her and slams it against his head, killing him.

“I can see it now, like a series of photographs,” Aud says in The Blue Place. “It was as though this veneer fell away, as though I stepped aside from a mask, and it felt as though my heart slipped its bearings and hurtled loose. I came off the carpet without thinking, without even blinking, holding the flashlight – and it must have weighed three pounds – like a piece of kindling. It was so light in my hands. I surged off that carpet, muscles whipping like hawsers, swinging that flashlight up and out, and I was so sure. It was so easy.”

Aud, daughter of a Norwegian diplomat and filthy rich, goes on to become an Atlanta cop and an expert in martial arts and self-defense. And despite the emotional distance she maintains from much of the world, she displays a persistent knack for falling into passionate encounters. In The Blue Place, while investigating the death of an art historian, she meets Julia, a woman who changes her life. Aud returns in two sequels, Stay and Always, and though she continues to wield her wealth and her violent skill with dexterity, she also evolves, becoming one of the most human and intriguing lesbians in crime fiction. – Malinda Lo

Clarissa Vaughan The Hours by Michael Cunningham (1998)

Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, based on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, follows a day in the life of three women in different decades. At the heart of the story is Clarissa Vaughan, a middle-aged lesbian living in Greenwich Village in the 1990s. She is throwing a party for her best friend, a gay poet named Richard who is afflicted with AIDS and has just won a prestigious award for his work. The relationship explores the intimate yet often overlooked friendships between lesbians and gay men.

Of all the characters Cunningham introduces – from Laura Brown, a despondent housewife in the 1950s to a suicidal Virginia Woolf trying to cope with her mental illness – Clarissa is the only one who is truly free. However, through the course of the day, she begins to unravel, and she clings to her dying friend as she revaluates her life.

In an especially poignant scene, she wonders what it would have been like had she and Richard decided to be together: “It is impossible not to imagine that other future as a vast and enduring romance laid over friendship so searing and profound it would accompany them to the grave and possibly even beyond. She could, she thinks, have entered another world. She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself. Or then again maybe not.” – Heather A. O’Neill

Maud Lily – Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (2002)

Maud Lily, one of the heroines in Sarah Waters’ Victorian thriller Fingersmith, is as manipulative as she vulnerable. Essentially held captive at her uncle’s countryside estate, she helps him ink pornographic books for collectors in London. The opportunity for escape arrives in a marriage proposal from the shifty Richard, and Maud is forced to betray Susan, the woman she loves.

However, after the ceremony, she soon discovers that the ruse is also on her. The plot pulses with complexity. Maud is stubborn, but it is her ability both to justify her exploits and learn from her mistakes that makes her such a compelling character.

Here she is before her transformation: “Why should she [Sue] stay? She will go, and I shall be left – to my uncle, to the books, to Mrs. Stiles, to some new meek and bruisable girl … I think of my life – of the hours, the minutes, the days that have made it up; the hours, the minutes, the days that stretch before me, still to be lived. I think of how they will be – without Richard, without money, without London , without liberty. Without Sue. And so you see it is love – not scorn, not malice; only love – that makes me harm her, in the end.” – Heather A. O’Neill

Min Wei Geography Club (2003), The Order of the Poison Oak (2005) and Split Screen (2007) by Brent Hartinger

Brent Hartinger’s 2003 young adult novel, Geography Club, introduced gay teen Russel Middlebrook as he came out and started a gay/straight alliance at his high school, code-named the “Geography Club” to deter curious students from joining. In the process of coming out, Russel learns that one of his best friends, Min Wei, is bisexual and even has a girlfriend. Min is outspoken, blunt and funny. In Split Screen, the third novel featuring Russel and Min and their friends, she explains her take on bisexuality:

“Most people really don’t understand bisexuality. I hate it when people talk like bisexual people are indecisive, unable to make up their minds. It’s not a question of being changeable, like a sea anemone, able to switch genders. I don’t shift or waver or change, and I’m not on my way to anything other than being bi; I’ve always been bisexual, and I always will be. Why is that so hard for people to understand?”

Min is one of the very few queer Chinese-American characters in fiction, and possibly the only one in a young adult novel. And she’s a particularly heartening character because Min’s family is quite progressive. She has two Ph.D.-holding parents who adjust quickly to her coming-out; though they may not have expected the development, they never judge her for being who she is. This may be more fantasy than reality for a lot of queer Asian-American teens, but it’s a positive one, and one we should see more of. – Malinda Lo

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