The Gilda Stories

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez is a different kind of vampire tale. Written in segments, the first being published in the Village Voice, this tale follows a young Black woman from escaping enslavement through the year 2050.

In the 1950s, outside of New Orleans, Gilda finds a young woman hiding in her cellar. The Girl has escaped and fled from Mississippi. Gilda takes her in, moves her to town to help at her brothel. 

After a few years, when Gilda is ready to move on, she turns the girl - giving her the chance to live until she decides otherwise. All she asks is that the girl use the name Gilda.

The chapters that follow lead Gilda to San Francisco, Boston, New York and more. While telling the story of a gentler vampire archetype, one who gives as she takes, Gilda travel through generations of changes in civil rights.

Gomez is a classic lesbian novel. She explores Blackness, radical ecology, redefinitions of family, and the fluidity of the vampire in human society.

Gomez, Jewelle. (1991). The Gilda Stories. San Francisco: City Light Books.