Between the Shadow and Lo by Lauren Sapala – Reviewed by Guy Portman
Twenty-something Seattleite Leah is an emotionally damaged alcoholic with a penchant for drugs, sleeping around and books. She has an alter ego, a dark figment of her imagination, she calls Lo. Whenever Leah gets drunk, Lo comes to the fore.
The story consists for the most part of Leah recounting her various escapades, which entail taking drugs, frequenting bars, chasing men and inevitably ending up in a drink-laden stupor.
Between the Shadow and Lo is a first-person work of Transgressive Fiction written by a female author and boasting a female protagonist, both something of a rarity in what remains a male-dominated genre. The book’s squalid descriptions of Seattle’s underbelly appealed to this reader.
