The Princess of Pain

Carolyn Gage is one of our most courageous and innovative writers to come of age inside the lesbian feminist movement of our time. Throughout her prolific career, Gage has given voice to women missing or misrepresented in the literary canon. Whether a lesbian Joan of Arc regretting her service to the king or a Harriet Tubman arguing with her therapist, Gage's women startle us not only because they are unfamiliar, but because they ring so true. In The Princess of Pain, Gage once again lures us past our threshold of comfort as we journey through the interior landscape of a woman suffering with irremediable pain. Under the magic of Gage's crystalline prose and Sudie Rakusin's resonant illustrations, any residue impulses to blame or otherwise distance ourselves from human suffering are exposed as base and cruel when set beside Princess' heroic, clear-eyed refusal of false palliatives.

-Patricia Morgne Cramer, co-editor Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings In Carolyn Gage's The Princess of Pain we go on a moving journey of discovery with a woman tortured by constant pain. She takes us along in her wheelchair, seeking peace, answers, and an end to her pain, as she visits goddesses from around the world. The goddesses, lusciously illustrated by Sudie Rakusin and richly described by Gage, provide the princess with many beautiful and terrifying truths. The Princess of Pain delves deep into myth and story in gorgeous detail, leading the reader and the princess to recognize our incredible purpose, showing us how to name it, and to take into our hands the mystery of ourselves and our universe in acceptance.

- Jen Rouse, author of Cake The Princess of Pain is deceptively simple and universally human. Gage's story engages the heart and mind, pulling the reader forward with hope and desire. Rakusin's illustrations absorb the reader-this is not a story you merely dip a toe in; it is full-bodied, immersive. Part-metaphor, part-hero's journey, it remains entirely original. It is a necessary story teaching necessary lessons that somehow avoids preachiness and moralizing. We find our way into the Princess' heart and see the hope in her apparent pessimism.

- Hilary Brown, author of When She Woke She Was an Open Field