Sometimes I long for beauty – in a book I want beautiful writing and even some beauty illuminated in everyday experience. Fiona McGregor’s short story collection does little to ease my longing.

Firstly, it throws up what I see as a common underlying problem in lesbian writing. In our hunger for recognition, we give our writing justification by asserting that we are filling the gap; that we are addressing the continuing under-representation of lesbian reality in contemporary mainstream Australian literature. And this self-righteousness frequently masks a sloppiness, a lack of attention to detail, an unwillingness to push the medium further, to strain the writing, to make it thrilling.