Selby Wynn Schwartz seduces the mind of readers with compelling narrative and how | After Sappho Book Review

Selby Wynn Schwartz, in her debut, dares to envision the possibilities and chaotic selves of the twentieth-century women, sometimes queer. ‘It was what X was not.’ She writes on women’s fantasies and actions that didn’t desire young men or their ‘hot breaths’ at the time, contrariwise - associate and companion. It centres on the Italian poet Lina Poletti, who ‘has her own ways of escaping the century’, in the 1900 and covers her zeal to the inner lives of women artists. ‘Then she rose to dress for dinner.’ Talking about Lina Poletti, the author says her previous name - Cordula ‘sounded anyway like a heap of hope’ while ‘Lina was sleek’. By using the collective first-person voice "We", Schwartz's bold and compelling narrative takes an unconventional route which fails to shadow any known structure, yet ‘holding on to threads’ and showing the path ahead in ways uncountable.