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 | Listing
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 →
Top Ten Everything
Today’s kind of an intersticial day, so I’m revving up by sharing all the commentating and writing I did during the 2016 holidaze.
I reviewed Fences, Denzel Washington’s adaptation of the August Wilson play; Julieta, Pedro Almodóvar’s adaptation of three Alice Munro stories; Neruda, Pablo Larraín’s film about the Chilean poet and dissident; 20th Century Women, Mike Mill’s homage to his mum; All We Had, Katie Holmes’ adaptation of Annie Weatherwax’s novel; and Silence, Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s novel. As well, I named my top ten films and top ten adaptations, and the most creative adaptations, and spoke with Jack Rico and Mike Sargent about 2016 film on Rico’s Highly Relevant podcast, and reviewed the end of the year’s best on Talking Pictures, the NY1 show on which I appear weekly. Perhaps the piece I’m most proud of (and was the least read) is Who’s Reading Who, about the hazards of racial identification in literature —especially YA novels.
Thank you as ever for coming along on this ride, Sirenaders. Happy happy new non-Jew year!