http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1031683

Naked in the promised land

Born in 1940, Faderman was the only child of an uneducated and unmarried immigrant Jewish woman whose family perished in the Holocaust, Racked by guilt, her mother suffered psychotic episodes. Her only escape from her sweatshop job was her beloved daughter, Lilly, whose childhood dream was to become a movie star and "rescue" her mother. Lilly grew up to become Lil, outwardly tough, inwardly innocent, hungry for love and success. Learning that her deepest erotic and emotional connections were to women, she found herself in a dangerous but seductive lesbian underworld of addicts, pimps, and prostitutes. Desperate to make her life meaningful and to redeem her mother's suffering, she worked her way through Berkeley as a burlesque stripper, ultimately achieving a Ph. D. At last she became Lillian, a loving partner, a devoted mother, an acclaimed writer, and a charismatic, groundbreaking scholar of gay and lesbian studies.--From publisher description.

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