By Gerri Hill
A sculptor discovers love and identity
Subject
Themes
Cassie Parker is a thirty-three-year-old wood sculptor living in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, who has known she is gay for five years but has never acted on it. She dates men she feels nothing for, carves animals from driftwood in solitude, and keeps the truth locked behind walls built by her father, Reverend Parker, whose fire-and-brimstone condemnation of homosexuality defined her childhood. He raised her in near-total isolation, forbidding friendships, films, and normal teenage experiences, punishing her with locked rooms and withheld meals when she failed to memorise Scripture. Her best friend Kim, a lesbian who was herself banished by the Reverend years earlier, pushes Cassie relentlessly toward self-acceptance, but Cassie cannot imagine a life her father's voice would not destroy.
Cassie Parker is a thirty-three-year-old wood sculptor living in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, who has known she is gay for five years but has never acted on it. She dates men she feels nothing for, carves animals from driftwood in solitude, and keeps the truth locked behind walls built by her father,…
Artist's Dream was published in 2005 by Bella Books, a publisher specialising in lesbian fiction, and belongs to a tradition of lesbian romance that emerged from the pulp paperback era of the 1950s and 1960s. Writers such as Ann Bannon and Patricia Highsmith produced groundbreaking work under…
Cassie's struggle is not simply about accepting her sexuality; it is about dismantling a prison she has been building inside herself since childhood. Her father did not merely condemn homosexuality from the pulpit. He constructed an entire world designed to prevent his daughter from ever…
Cassie's identity as an artist is inseparable from her journey toward self-acceptance. She carves animals from driftwood and fallen timber, transforming dead material into living forms. The metaphor is not subtle, and the story does not pretend it is: a woman who has spent decades suppressing her…
The tension between biological family and chosen family runs through the entire narrative, shaping every major decision Cassie makes. Her biological family consists of exactly one person: Reverend Parker, a man she does not like, does not trust, and speaks to perhaps once every two years. Yet she…
Reverend Parker wields religion not as a path to understanding but as an instrument of control, and the story traces how his selective theology deforms every relationship it touches. He quotes Paul's letter to the Romans to condemn homosexuality, thunders Bible verses at Kim when he catches her…
Visibility is the story's central battlefield. Cassie spends decades making herself invisible, hiding her desires behind manufactured relationships with men, concealing her knowledge from Kim, avoiding any behaviour that might expose her truth. She has perfected the art of strategic absence: she is…
Cassie Parker is a thirty-three-year-old wood sculptor living alone in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, in a house surrounded by redwoods and the tools of her trade. She carves animals from driftwood and fallen timber: small squirrels and bears for county fairs, and magnificent large eagles that sell for…
Luke Winston arrives in Sebastopol as a successful architect in her late thirties, wealthy enough to build a stunning modern home overlooking meadows and the distant Pacific. She is tall, dark-haired, and strikingly beautiful, with golden-brown eyes that shift colour in different light. She drives a…
Kim is Cassie's best friend, confidante, and the closest thing she has to family. A lesbian who went through her own painful coming-out process years earlier, Kim serves as both a mirror and a compass for Cassie throughout the story. She lives with her partner Lisa in Sebastopol, paints abstract…
Reverend Parker is Cassie's father and the story's primary antagonist, though his villainy is complicated by a final revelation that reframes every cruel act as the product of personal devastation rather than pure malice. He is a physically imposing man, over six feet tall with steel-grey hair and…
Cassie Parker has spent years constructing a life of careful isolation in Sonoma County. A talented wood carver whose eagle sculptures command thousands of dollars, she has built professional success while keeping her personal life deliberately empty. Her best friend Kim, an openly gay painter who…
At the Labour Day art festival, Cassie is working at her booth when the beautiful stranger reappears. She introduces herself as Luke Winston, an architect looking for pieces for a client. Luke buys the golden eagle sculpture for two thousand dollars, casually mentioning she would have paid four.…
Five days of obsessive work cannot erase Luke from Cassie's mind. She avoids Kim's phone calls, knowing that any mention of her night at Luke's house would unleash relentless teasing. She forces herself to focus on her carvings, watching her hands as they work and trying not to think of Luke's…
At the wine and cheese party, Cassie drinks too much while watching Luke socialise with Trish, a notorious flirt. Jealousy burns through her, though she refuses to name it. When Luke finds her alone in the kitchen struggling with a corkscrew, Cassie snaps at her, telling her to go back to Trish.…
A week after the first kiss, Cassie throws herself into the County Fair, trying to use work as a distraction from Luke. It partially succeeds: Weldon Arnold, a retired gallery owner who lives in a log home Luke designed, visits her booth and purchases a beaver and eagle for nine thousand dollars. He…
Four days pass after the party, and Cassie cannot bring herself to ring Luke. She picks up the phone and sets it down again, paralysed by the fear that reaching out will confirm what she already knows about herself. At close to midnight, unable to sleep and terrified that another morning will bring…
Cassie wakes at the foot of her bed with every muscle aching, the sheets tangled on the floor, and Luke's scent still on her hands. She feels no shame about the night before, only a deep contentment and a fierce hunger for more. Her clothes are folded neatly on a chair, and a note waits on the…
The morning after their confrontation, Reverend Parker approaches Cassie with an unexpected apology while she works on a red-tailed hawk carving. He admits she was right and that he keeps forgetting she is a grown woman. Cassie accepts cautiously, and they share a rare moment of lightness when she…
Cassie and her father arrive at Kim and Lisa's house for Thanksgiving to find Luke's Lexus already parked outside. Inside, Melissa Etheridge plays on the stereo, Kim's deliberate provocation. Lisa greets the Reverend warmly, and he corrects her: "Reverend," not Mister. Luke introduces herself with…
Cassie sits on the steps of Luke's deck in the early morning with her coffee, having slipped out of bed while Luke sleeps. She wants a quiet moment to absorb how completely her life has transformed. They spent the previous day and night in a cocoon of intimacy, talking for hours between bouts of…
Cassie Parker is a thirty-three-year-old wood sculptor living alone in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, in a house surrounded by redwoods and the tools of her trade. She carves animals from driftwood and fallen timber: small squirrels and bears for county fairs, and magnificent large eagles that sell for…
Luke Winston arrives in Sebastopol as a successful architect in her late thirties, wealthy enough to build a stunning modern home overlooking meadows and the distant Pacific. She is tall, dark-haired, and strikingly beautiful, with golden-brown eyes that shift colour in different light. She drives a…
Kim is Cassie's best friend, confidante, and the closest thing she has to family. A lesbian who went through her own painful coming-out process years earlier, Kim serves as both a mirror and a compass for Cassie throughout the story. She lives with her partner Lisa in Sebastopol, paints abstract…
Reverend Parker is Cassie's father and the story's primary antagonist, though his villainy is complicated by a final revelation that reframes every cruel act as the product of personal devastation rather than pure malice. He is a physically imposing man, over six feet tall with steel-grey hair and…
By Gerri Hill
Subject
Themes
Cassie Parker is a thirty-three-year-old wood sculptor living in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, who has known she is gay for five years but has never acted on it. She dates men she feels nothing for, carves animals from driftwood in solitude, and keeps the truth locked behind walls built by her father, Reverend Parker, whose fire-and-brimstone condemnation of homosexuality defined her childhood. He raised her in near-total isolation, forbidding friendships, films, and normal teenage experiences, punishing her with locked rooms and withheld meals when she failed to memorise Scripture. Her best friend Kim, a lesbian who was herself banished by the Reverend years earlier, pushes Cassie relentlessly toward self-acceptance, but Cassie cannot imagine a life her father's voice would not destroy.