Newcomers to political resistance movements may be surprised that women of all walks of life now are taking the lead, but American sisters (not just cisters) have a long history of battling brilliantly for their rights – one we’d be remiss in ignoring now. Many of the most powerful emergent voices in the resistance are female, from former Attorney General Sally Yates, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, Beyoncé to the attorneys offering their services to immigrants and refugees in the wake of the new executive policies. (A 70-30 female-male ration has been estimated among these legal defenders.) For Women’s History month, I’ve put together a list of some key primers in the U.S. women’s rights movements, warts and all. Continue Reading →
Archive | Book Matters
Hall of Praxis
More bad news today, really terrible news. A shut-down Elizabeth Warren; Jeff Sessions confirmed as attorney general. In my distress I find myself turning to literature: memoir, novels, and, above all, poetry. I need its slow, steady heartbeat; I thrive on its small and great pleasures. Donald Hall in particular is speaking to me though I’m still figuring out why. This is the magic of poetry: that scavenger hunt of self-discovery. Continue Reading →
Literary Solace: Exceptional Books About Grief
I have cried more in the first week of Donald Trump’s reign of terror than I did in all of 2016. And while I could give you the old razzle-dazzle about how every cloud has its silver lining – and in fact, I do believe that– I’d rather provide a list of books to make you feel less alone. Sometimes literary solidarity is even better than literary solace. Note this list is a tad controversial in terms of its omissions. (For example, no The Year of Magical Thinking, which I unfashionably regard as a valentine to ladylike dissociation that’s typical of author Joan Dideon.)
FICTION
Disturbances in the Field–Lynne Sharon Schwartz
A satisfyingly sprawling tome about a married pair of New York City artists whose children die in a bus accident, Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s Disturbances in the Field captures the unhappy specificity of grief with an unflinching eye and wonderful descriptions of food, sex, and 1980s Manhattan shimmer.
Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object–Laurie Colwin
Food writer and novelist Laurie Colwin died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm in her forties. Though technically she could not have anticipated the brevity of her life, this meticulously constructed novel about a twentysomething woman who loses her husband in a sailing accident suggests an eerie familiarity with the particular pain of an early demise. Like of all of Colwin’s books, it also conveys uncomfortable truths and irrevocable, rushing pleasures. Continue Reading →