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A Thin Bright Line
Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Finalist, Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction, Publishing Triangle
Finalist, Lambda Award for Lesbian Fiction, Lambda Literary Foundation
An extraordinary woman determined to rise above the restraints of her time
At the height of the Cold War, Lucybelle Bledsoe is offered a job seemingly too good to pass up. However, there are risks. Her scientific knowledge and editorial skills are unparalleled, but her personal life might not withstand government scrutiny.
Leaving behind the wreckage of a relationship, Lucybelle finds solace in working for the visionary scientist who is extracting the first-ever polar ice cores. The lucidity of ice is calming and beautiful. But the joyful pangs of a new love clash with the impossible compromises of queer life. If exposed, she could lose everything she holds dear.
Based on the hidden life of the author’s aunt and namesake, A Thin Bright Line is a love story set amid Cold War intrigue, the origins of climate research, and the nascent civil rights movement. Poignant, brilliant, and moving, it reminds us to act on what we love, not just wish for it.
Praise
“It triumphs as an intimate and humane evocation of day-to-day life under inhumane circumstances.”
—New York Times Book Review
“A story set in mid-20th century America – one that deftly weaves closeted sexuality, Cold War politics and a mysterious death that haunts the author to this day.”
—San Jose Mercury News
“Merges fact and fiction to create a historically accurate picture of the struggles faced by LGBT people in the 1950s and '60s; the closeting that was required for professional advancement; and the ways the Cold War pitted pure science against research to benefit the defense industry. A stirring and deeply felt story.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This is gripping historical fiction about queer life at the height of the Cold War and the civil rights movement, and its grounding in fact really makes it sing. Like the scientists whose papers she edits, Lucybelle Bledsoe is passionate about the truth. Whether it’s the climate history of the planet as illuminated by cores of polar ice or the pursuit of an authentic emotional life in the miasma of McCarthyism, she operates with piercing honesty.”
—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home
“A testament to courage and perseverance in the face of oppression, and a compelling, literary page-turner worthy of standing alongside the works of Pat Barker and Graham Greene. A Thin Bright Line reminds us that we are nothing, deep down, without love and dignity.”
—Patrick Ryan, author of The Dream Life of Astronauts
“Through her fictional reconstruction of the life of her namesake, her beloved aunt—who fought the good fight as a pioneering professional and a lesbian in unsympathetic times—Lucy Jane Bledsoe re-creates an important piece of history and imagines what it was like to live it. Poignant in both its conception and execution.”
—Lillian Faderman, author of The Gay Revolution
“In this ingenious hybrid of fact and fiction, a fine novelist uses her storytelling skills to recover the lost life of a favorite aunt, a bookish, unmarried scientist from Arkansas. With her story Bledsoe also exhumes a dark, clandestine age in American history, the time of Ann Bannon and Patricia Highsmith, but made more intimate and real.”
—Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters
“An engaging and moving novel about an unforgettable character. Intelligent, unadorned, and unsentimental, it allows us to look at a difficult time in American history with clarity instead of nostalgia.”
—Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman
Additional Resources
Visit Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s website at www.lucyjanebledsoe.com
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