cover image The Mayor of Heaven

The Mayor of Heaven

Lynn Kanter. Third Side Press, $22.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-1-879427-29-7

Claire Morganstern, the strong, sassy star of Kanter's impassioned second novel (after House on Lill Street), has been dead of breast cancer for six months when we first get to know her through the memories of her four closest friends--including Lucy, her lover of 12 years. Unfortunately, Claire gets all the best lines in this novel about her survivors, and Kanter spends much of her time on a soapbox, arguing the politics of breast cancer. As the foreword (by lesbian activist Susan Hester) suggests, the novel is at least partly a ""how-to book: as such, some schematic-ness is perhaps unavoidable. Kanter's treatment of the discrimination that faces bereaved lesbians is illuminating, however, even when she abandons fiction for bald social criticism. As a novelist, in any case, Kanter poignantly describes the process of mourning and moving on, whether that means updating an answering-machine message or relearning how to fall in love. (Oct.) FYI: This is the first hardcover release from Third Side.