Women and Poisson-chats: a Nameless Desire in Monique Lange
Abstract
Women in love with men who love men: a woman’s desire for a gay man is an enigmatic configuration of desire often trivialized if not stigmatized both by terms such as fag hag or fruit fly (frociarola in Italian) and by grotesque literary representations (David Leavitt, Robert Rodi). On the contrary, French writer Monique Lange (1926-1986) has turned such desire into an actual topos deeply investigated throughout most of her production and especially in her début novel The Kissing Fish (1959). The story portrays a bond of fraternity and identification capable of defying hetero-patriarchy as well as sexual and gender norms. Lange’s work therefore depicts a queer form of affection in a sometimes joyful sometimes painful search for social and erotic alternatives.
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