Description
“Every page of Carol Rosenfeld’s novel delivers delectable dyke drama, replete with the quagmires of sexual obsession, high-stakes betrayal, and lesbian holiness. How can I laugh so hard at these characters and simultaneously feel tenderness for each and every one? Rosenfeld’s fierce wit is addictive; I read the book in one go.” –Lucy Jane Bledsoe, author of The Big Bang Symphony
The One That Got Away takes readers on a humorous and heartfelt journey of later-in-life sexual self-discovery in bustling New York City. A bridal consultant learns that when you peel off the glossy veneer of romantic perfection, what’s left is your own true-to-life happy ending. Bambi Devine, known to her friends as B.D., is a middle-aged bridal consultant who has recently come out to her friends after years of kidding herself about her sexuality—only to find out her friends knew all along and were just too polite to say anything to her. Then B.D. meets Bridget McKnight, the woman of her dreams. Unfortunately for her, Bridget is in a relationship with Natalie Lamont. But Natalie’s intense friendship with Maxine Huff has New York City’s lesbian community buzzing with speculation. Are they really just friends? Could these two members of the Park Slope Clitocybes—a mycological society—share a passion for more than morels? And more importantly for B.D., does this mean she stands a chance with Bridget? After years of hand-holding demanding brides, B.D. knows what love can do to sane people. Fortified by doses of drag queen wisdom from her boss, Eduardo, B.D. tackles unrequited love and lust, dyke drama, and being in a relationship without having a date for New Year’s Eve in this romp about queer life in New York City.
Carol Rosenfeld is an accomplished short fiction writer and poet—though it’s been awhile since she participated in a poetry slam. The One That Got Away is the first novel by this writer described as “A fruit cup in the whole-grain world of literary fiction.” A Juris Doctor (she went to night school), she is kept very busy as the voluntary chair of the Publishing Triangle, which has been promoting LGBT literature since 1988. And that’s when she’s not at her day job, working for an organization that administers grants for the many colleges in the City University of New York. She’s lived in New York since 1976, and can often be found at the opera—she has a growing fascination for Wagner (and quite a few questions, too).
