Desert Of The Heart

Plot

Classic lesbian novel. The basis for the movie Desert Hearts.

Two women meet and fall in love in Reno, Nevada. Evelyn Hall has gone there to get a divorce from her husband; Ann Childs works there as a change girl in a gambling casino. The movie Desert Hearts is based on this first novel by Jane Rule.

Set in the late 1950s, this is the story of Evelyn Hall, an English Professor, who goes to Reno to obtain a divorce and put an end to her disastrous 16-year marriage. While staying at a boarding house to establish her six-week residency requirement she meets Ann Childs, a casino worker and fifteen years her junior. Physically, they are remarkably alike and eventually have an affair and begin the struggle to figure out just how a relationship between two women can last. Desert of the Heart examines the conflict between convention and freedom and the ways in which the characters try to resolve the conflict. And if you have not yet had the opportunity to see the movie, Desert Hearts, you have to ask yourself… “Have I really lived?”