photo via sarah.of.a.lesser.god
This feature (for now in the custody of sarah.of.a.lesser.god) is our way of sharing those book titles, both fiction and nonfiction, that have been standouts in recent reading, and hopefully getting some from our readers in return. The focus is primarily, but not necessarily exclusively, on books concerning women and feminism, and/or written by female authors.
My Pick: “The Fall River Axe Murders” by Angela Carter. A rare fiction recommendation on my part, but this excellent short story was part of the reading for my fiction workshop this semester, for which I am very grateful to my professor. It’s historical fiction and recounts the tale of the Lizzie Borden axe murders from the point of view of an imaginary witness. Carter’s writing is crisp and she does a phenomenal job of setting the scene without any flowery details. It’s a clear-eyed look at the lives of unmarried women who were forced to depend on their families in the late 19th-century. The book that the story is featured in is called Saints and Strangers, and I have added it to my birthday wish list so that I can read the rest of Carter’s tales, all of which focus on her own interpretation of famous women’s lives throughout history.
What say you? Have any titles to share with the Harpies and your fellow readers? Note: while I tend to focus on books, your input does not strictly have to be a literary recommendation if you have something extraordinary that is in another medium such as music or film that you would love to let us know about.
I’m reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s AMERICAN WIFE right now–a novel that’s loosely based on the life of Laura Bush. It’s absolutely brilliant–way better than her first novel, PREP, which was pretty damn good. Sittenfeld manages to titillate you with “wow, this is based on Laura Bush!” (the sex scenes with W are suprisingly HAWT) while managing to rise completely above that hook.
IMO, it’s up there as one of the great American novels about a woman’s life–and women’s lives–in the 20th century. It’s tremendously enteraining and both overtly and subversively feminist in ways I can’t reveal b/c I’d spoil it the plot twists.
Were I to read sex scenes about Laura and W, I think the only thing that would “rise completely” would be my gorge.
And on-topic, I just bought a used copy of Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism, ed. Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman. It’s a few years old, but I’m looking forward to getting past the introduction (by playwright Cherrie Moraga) and into the essays themselves and hearing about the class-race-gender intersectionality from those who live it differently than I.
@PhD: How old is the book? I ask because of the title “Today’s Feminism” which makes me thinks it would be interesting to have a follow-up fifteen or twenty years later to see if there’s any shift in what these writers (or the next generation) are experiencing.
@Becky: I am so tempted to make a joke about Laura choking on George’s pretzel…
Hello! Last month I read “A Room of One’s Own.” Have you guys heard of it? It’s by this lady named Virginia Woolf. I think she’s going places.
My edition of this book also included her “Three Guineas,” which I did not know about before reading but absolutely loved. It was written as a response to a man who wrote her from an anti-war society asking her how “the daughters of educated men” could help with the prevention of war. And she, at times, tears him a new one. And it’s great.
Also I just read Lillian Hellman’s memoir “Pentimento,” and even though she apparently pretty much made all of it up, it’s worth reading because she was completely badass.
I highly recommend The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. In our current time we can forget what other women went through, this story tells of the tragedy of the loss of children to weather and the stories of some young women responsible for saving some children at an immense cost to themselves.
Only read it in a warm home with the kids (if you’ve got em) tucked in.
Indiana, by George Sand. It’s kind of shocking how close she got to explicit feminism in 1832. Also, it’s a good story — although you may not like the ending.
I’m reading The Journals Of Sylvia Plath and it’s making me depressed.
Thanks soalg, I was just thinking that I wanted to buy read something I hadn’t read before by Angela Carter
@Becky: Maybe you can’t answer without spoilers, but how explicitly is it based on Laura Bush? I haven’t read the book but I know a bit about what happens, and it sounds like it gets into scandalous/libelous territory.
American Wife was great. I thought she’d lost her mind, choosing Laura Bush as a subject, but she totally pulled it off. Made those people human in a way I thought they never would be for me. It was never helpful to see them purely as monsters, though I will always disagree with virtually everything they believe.
Becky, btw, I read GILEAD, which you recommended on the last book thread. I’m glad I read it, and it built to something wonderful, but the first half was SLOW. Somehow I’ve become one of those people that can’t get through “quiet” fiction. I was clinging to the stories about his grandfather (which, awesome) until the Broughton factor became important.
@Khrushchev: I just read Woolf for the first time (Mrs. Dalloway) and I think I will have to re-read it because I was only sporadically interested. “Three Guineas” sounds very interesting.
SOALG, her non-fiction and her fiction are very different. I personally like both, but I struggled through Mrs. Dalloway too, but had no problem with A Room of One’s Own or Three Guineas.
I’m addicted, as I’ve mentioned before, to this lady called Elizabeth Taylor (which reminds me, where’s emilyanne???) and I re-read Blaming recently. Awesome.
@Spark: Under US law, it’s not libel/slandar to write a novel based on someone else’s life, even if that person is alive, so Sittenfeld didn’t have to worry about that.
Basically, without ruining everything the novel is set in Wisconsin, instead of Texas, but follows the perameters of Laura’s life, including her accidentally killing a high school classmate in a car accident, her years as a school librarian and her marrying the son of a wealthy family and his political ambitions, etc. The depictions of the Blackwells (i.e. the Bushes) are really great–esp. her portrait of the family matriarch, who is the icy bitch we’ve all secretly known Barbara Bush to be all along.
Also, she presents a very clear, affecting portrayal of the relationship between the Laura character and the W character, and you totally understand and feel the attraction between them.
soalg: It’s from 2002, Seal Press. You can “look inside” the table of contents at this Amazon link, or see a preview here, at Google Reader.
Becky – I’m in the middle of American Wife. I’ve stalled a bit, but the first half – actually, probably the first third – is PHENOMENALLY DONE. I can’t even believe the sheer amount of research Sittenfeld must have done, but beyond that it’s just beautifully, incredibly well-written. I’m a fan of hers and AW is making me even more so.
I’m really into YA lit these days (work) and I’m obsessed with Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy. Dark, a bit scary, but really captivating and beautiful.
I loved American Wife initially despite myself but then because it’s actually a very good and subtle novel.
Now my recommendation please please read Megan Abbott, who is a US crime writer who has completely reclaimed the noir genre and finally gives all those bored broads and fatal femmes a real voice. Her first two books are Die A Little and The Song Is You and both read like a feminist version of Ellroy and are wonderfully and subtly written (and in a genre where its hard to avoid pastiche).
oh and Pilgrim Soul – i am here, just and jetlagged, after three weeks back in the UK. We’ll both keep flying the Elizabeth Taylor flag – there’s a new biography of her just out actually called The Other Elizabeth Taylor.
Oh and also worth a look Wendy Moore’s biography Wedlock which is a wonderful dissection of a terrible 18th century marriage and an acerbic commentary on how women lived then with wide implications for what hasn’t changed now.
@emilyanne: The Wendy Moore book sounds really interesting; I always love biographies. In some ways, it sounds like the Angela Carter short story is a bit like that because it is very conscious of exactly how women’s lives were in the late 19th century.
@bb — Oh, I love Libba Bray, and loved her 1000x more when I was looking at her livejournal after the last book was released. She answered a bunch of reader’s questions and said, “Ok, I have a question for you: why do I get so many letters indicating that the highest goal in a woman’s life is to be in love?” She also talked some about the racial dimensions in the books.
I just read Rosamond Lehmann’s Dusty Answer and it is like the beautiful love child of Elizabeth Smart and Dodie Smith. I sucked it down in two and a half days, though I know I’ll go back to linger over it. It’s perfect for anyone who is a loner type living in their own dreamy world.
Also, for some reason I was thinking of the 1900 House, a PBS reality miniseries now on DVD about a family living like it’s 1900. It’s wonderful to see the mother get feminism in a real way. She also struggles with the idea of “the help,” and I break down in tears every time I see her handle suffragette artifacts.
OMG 1900 House! I love all those educational role-play reality shows, US or UK. The Pioneer one, the Edwardian one…that is some serious material-feminist stuff right there. (And nice bridge between the book thread and the green thread.)
@PhDork: Ooooh, me too! The Frontier House one was seriously entertaining. Also, the Edwardian one in the UK…I loved how those poor women were driven to cheat out of sheer desperation when they couldn’t get decent shampoo.
Yes – the green thread did spark the thoughts — I remember the horrors of ye olde laundry day(s). I didn’t know there was an Edwardian one — I’ll have to check the library.
magda, read Rosamund Lehman’s other books, she’s a much underrated writer and The Weather In The Streets in particular is wonderful if heartbreaking.
I love Libba Bray too btw
Any of the Russel-Holmes books, starting with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Mary Russel is an amazing character! I love that she’s not ashamed or afraid to be smart.
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall and The Fresco, both by Sherri Tepper.
@kathleenB: That was SUCH a good book. I love the Holmes-Russell romance. Laurie R. King’s other mystery/thriller books are good too, but those are the BEST.
@becky: She’s got a new one, called The Language of Bees, coming out on the 29th. I might even have enough anniversary money to pick up a paper copy!
Oh my gosh, I just finished American Wife, myself, and I loved it! I loved the whole hook about the narrator, Alice Blackwell, living a life in opposition to itself, or however the line goes. It’s so beautifully written-Sittenfeld has such a detailed, perceptive writing style.
Also I absolutely loved the grandmother. She was such a wonderful character.
soalg, might I suggest you skip Saints and Strangers and get Burning Your Boats instead? It has all of Angela Carter’s short stories, and there isn’t one that didn’t completely blow me away. My goodreads review was basically, “guh… she good writer”.
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