How long does it take to read Loving Her?
Ann Allen Shockley
Loving Her by Ann Allen Shockley takes about 3 hours 26 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 26 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1970. 187 pages, about 51,425 words.
7 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 5 hours 43 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 26 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 9 minutes |
The page count is the median across 8 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Originally published in 1974, Loving Her is the first novel by an African American author to deal explicitly with interracial lesbian love. The groundbreaking story centers on Renay, a talented black musician who is forced by pregnancy to marry the abusive, alcoholic Jerome Lee. When Jerome sells Renay's piano to finance his drinking, she leaves her destructive marriage and flees with her young daughter to Terry, a wealthy white writer whom she met at a supper club. Terry awakens in Renay a love and sexual desire beyond her erotic imaginings. Despite the sexist, racist, and homophobic prejudices they must confront, the mutually supportive couple finds physical and emotional joy. When Jerome Lee discovers the nature of Renay and Terry's friendship, he beats Renay nearly to death and, in a drunken rage, kidnaps his daughter, who subsequently dies in a car accident. Grief-stricken and guilty about her love for Terry, Renay feels that God has punished her and breaks off their relationship to atone her "sins." In the end, she returns to Terry and a renewed life.
Subjects: Fiction, African American lesbians, Lesbians, Fiction, lesbian, Fiction, lgbtq+, lesbian, Fiction, general
