Sappho Rising

About the Book

“Sappho Rising” is an action love story about Hillary and Iris, lovers who defy the conventions of their world with disastrous consequences for their relationship and their future.  Forced to separate by their homophobic parents who intercept them in a motel, they find their isolation intolerable. They need money desperately so that they can runaway together. Iris does something so outrageous to get funds that her criminal actions separates them even more. Hillary moves on to become a fashion photographer and an activist in the lesbian and gay rights movement while Iris becomes a fugitive and lives underground with a new identity.

The novel follows their parallel lives and romantic adventures.

Hillary is blamed for everything and is hated by Iris's family, especially by her homophobic brother, Jerry.  She holds on to the dream of finding Iris until she meets Virginia, a rich, beautiful lesbian who is in a marriage of convenience.

Meanwhile, Iris’s escape route leads her to a group that befriends her and gives her a new identity and a future.  She is a free spirit and romps through life. After a series of jobs she teams up with the gay crowd in the ad agency where she works, spending summers at Fire Island and having casual affairs.

There are many complications that develop including the resurfacing of Iris’s accomplice, a mass demonstration that reopens old wounds for Iris’s brother, who belongs to a secret militia group in New Jersey.  His hate for Hillary and all gays and lesbians triggers another desperate plan that puts everyone in danger.

About the Author

Mary Vasiliades is a novelist and playwright who combines her writing with her feminist activism and political concerns. She began her writing career as a reporter on her hometown daily newspaper. Since then she has worked as a book and magazine editor, a speechwriter for an international human rights organization, medical writer, and public relations specialist. Two of her full-length and several of her one-act plays have been produced Off-Off Broadway in New York City. In addition, she helped organize mass demonstrations for women’s rights and held leadership positions in feminist organizations. Her activities are documented in her slideshow, “Memoirs of a New York Feminist.” Her novel, “Sappho Rising,” is a fast-paced, rousing story that follows the parallel lives of lovers, Hillary and Iris, whose homophobic families forced them to separate. One becomes a successful fashion photographer and the other, a fugitive living underground with a new identity.