All Girls Be Mine Alone, Sophie Strohmeier

“She and I will never fully be able to understand each other but I do still love her, and that is how I came to tell you this story now.”

Set among high school music students and opera fanatics in Vienna, Sophie Strohmeier’s All Girls Be Mine Alone spins a tale of obsessions, monsters, and romantic conquest.

An unnamed lesbian narrates the demise of her friendship with her high school classmate, Joachim, and their rivalry over his girlfriend. She then recalls an anecdote overheard years earlier, when a former opera singer confides her own haunting memories from her time studying at the renowned Mikhail Glinka Conservatory. In a crowded dormitory late one night, a group of student singers accidentally conjures the spirit of an excommunicated monk living in agony over the tragic death of his beloved. When one of the students becomes convinced that she has been possessed by the monk, she discovers a new sexual appetite. Together, the two narratives form a single fugue of memory and eroticism.

Marked by hypnotic precision and frank humor, All Girls Be Mine Alone is an inventive and deeply felt novella of queer awakening, artistic fixation, and the strange intimacy of rivalry.

SOPHIE STROHMEIER is a bilingual writer and translator from Vienna, Austria. She is the author of one novel in German, Küss mich, Libussa (edition a, 2013). Her English-language writing has appeared in Apofenie, Joyland, The Missouri Review, and The Kenyon Review. She lives and works in New York City.

Praise for All Girls Be Mine Alone

"Sharp-edged and unsentimental, recalling the precision of Garth Greenwell and the sardonic intimacy of Chris Kraus…a haunting tale of adolescent art, desire, and lingering wounds." —Kirkus

“A glittering, keyed-up work of Gothic mania. The love triangles, body swapping and erotic possessions that characterize this slim volume of sapphic fiction made me miss my bedtime and text my friends.” —Sonia Feldman, author of Girl's Girl

"A spellbinding tale of obsession, competition, and embodiment, All Girls Be Mine Alone explores the quintessential ache of coming of age and the fixation and longing that accompany it. Bending the boundaries of reality, Sophie Strohmeier takes readers deep into Vienna’s social scene, where operas and arias set the stage for sexual awakening. Lyrical and hypnotic, All Girls Be Mine Alone packs so much beauty into this slim volume, locating the heartbeat of queer desire and capturing its secret language." —Genevieve Hudson, author of Boys of Alabama and Pretend We Live Here

“Beautifully written and incredibly original.” —Erica Peplin, author of author of Work Nights

“I read All Girls Be Mine Alone twice in a row. The second time was as transporting as the first. It’s a strange book, yet its strangeness dissolves into the story like a spoonful of jam into a cup of tea, creating something sweet and timeless." —Fiona Warnick, author of author of The Skunks

Cover art by Jayne Thompson