SFF

Upright Women Wanted

by Sarah Gailey
Tor.com. Feb. 2020. 176p. ISBN 9781250213587. $20.99. SF
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Esther Augustus has fled town after her lover was hanged for possessing “unlawful materials”—also known as resistance propaganda. Stealing off in the librarians’ wagon, Esther believed that becoming one of the “morally upright” and chaste women who brought approved reading to towns across the country would save her from herself. Except that librarians Leda and Bet are a couple and in charge of bringing parcels—women escaping dire situations—across state lines to the resistance areas in Utah. When one of their “parcels” turns out to be even more trouble than first expected, Esther and the librarians load up their pistols, ready for a fight. Esther jumps from the frying pan into the fire, just where she needed to be to discover how to be her own woman.
VERDICT Gailey sets this adventurous novella that twists a historical trope into a singular story in an alternate future Southwest populated with bandits, shoot-outs, and fierce queer people. Readers will root for these rowdy librarians.
Reviewed by Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton , Jan 01, 2020
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