Posted by: WRB Blog
on
May 30, 2010
By Mary Hamer for WOMEN = BOOKS
“So what’s it about, this book you’ve written?” asked the friendly clerk in our local Post Office.
I swallowed. “Incest,” I said.
Posted by: WRB Blog
on
May 23, 2010
By Margaret Randall for WOMEN = BOOKS
After I wrote my review of Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel The Lacuna, I happened to be on Amazon.com one day and it occurred to me to take a look at what other readers were saying about the book. I was stunned at the dramatically contrasting nature of the comments. Roughly half of those who responded loved the book, and half hated it. The positive reviews were exuberant, the negative ones often vitriolic.
Well, I thought, if nothing else this novel has elicited strong feelings from a lot of readers. I wondered if such intense opinion would have been there for a novel that was not political. Indeed, many of those who didn’t like the book accused it of being too political, even pamphlet-like.
Posted by: WRB Blog
on
May 16, 2010
By Emily Toth for WOMEN = BOOKS
“You have the mantle of impertinence,” an older writer told me when I was fretting about interviewing people I didn’t know and asking them about their dead relatives’ lies and flings and treacheries.
Would they want their family secrets in my books?
Posted by: WRB Blog
on
May 09, 2010
By Lori D. Ginzberg for WOMEN = BOOKS
For two decades, I have taught history and women's studies at a large public university. My students are predominantly white and middle-class, and devout believers in the promise of individual choice. I have been a spectacular failure at convincing these students that their ideas about individualism and choice—which they casually assume accurately reflect reality—are also, always, historical concepts, deeply infused with what they want not to see in the mirror: their privilege, their authority, and their entitlement.
