Riverfinger Women: A Novel

Elana Dykewomon's debut novel follows Inez and her circle of friends—the Riverfinger women—as they navigate lesbian life in America during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Written when Dykewomon was twenty-four, the coming-of-age story traces Inez, who has known she was a lesbian since childhood, as she moves between her boarding school Highland and a Greenwich Village apartment shared with friends. She experiences longing, disappointment, friendship, and romance, including her first real relationship with schoolmate Abby. Along with their experimental friend Peggy, Inez and Abby graduate and move into adulthood, facing the prejudices of the wider world. Told through an interweaving narrative, the novel explores the characters' encounters with sexual violence, prostitution, drugs, love, and happiness amid the complexities of lesbian life during the second women's liberation movement. Originally published in 1974, the novel received the 2018 Lee Lynch Classic Award.