The Women's Review of Books articles from December 2002

The Women's Review of Books archives from December 2002

Cross currents.(The Last Girls )(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... The Last Girls by Lee Smith. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2002, 384 pp., $24.95 hardcover. I was born in the summer of 1965, between the walk from Selma to Montgomery and the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Freedom Summer was a year...

True confessions.(The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage )(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage edited by Cathi Hanauer. New York: William Morrow, 2002, 304 pp., $23.95 hardcover. Reading this book is like having long lunch with a good...

The limits of dialogue.(Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation edited by Nahia Abdo and Ronit Lentin. New York: Berghahn Books, 2002, 324 pp., $22.50 hardcover. What does it mean to think about...

World without end.(The Autograph Man)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith. New York: Random House, 2002, 400 pp., $24.95 hardcover. Anyone with a disposition toward the so-called novel of ideas (generally so-called only by writers of jacket copy and book reviews) might shriek...

Persistent patterns.(The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives by Nicholas W. Townsend. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002, 248 pp., $19.95 paper. Because that's just basic. It's just the way it has been since time began. Women...

Good intentions.(Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics )(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics edited by Stanlie M. James and Claire C. Robertson. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002, 169 pp., $29.95 hardcover. In the 1970s, female genital mutilation...

Visionary activist.(Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising )(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising by Starhawk. Easthampton, MA: New Society Publishers, 2002, 269 Pp., $17.95 paper. Starhawk is lucky on this day in July 2001. In Genoa during the anti-globalization protest against the...

The war at home.(Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Women's Diaries, Memoirs, and Documentary Prose)(The Siege: A Novel)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Women's Diaries, Memoirs, and Documentary Prose edited by Cynthia Simmons and Nina Perlina. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002, 242 pp., $29.00 hardcover. The Siege: A Novel by Helen...

Justifying justice.(The Political Geographies of Pregnancy)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... The Political Geographies of Pregnancy by Laura R. Woliver. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002, 280 pp., $34.95 hardcover. The Political Geographies of Pregnancy constructs a coherent account of the meanings of pregnancy in...

Bloomsday book.(The House on Eccles Road)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... The House on Eccles Road by Judith Kitchen. Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2002, 221 pp., $22.00 hardcover. On June 16, 1999, in Dublin Ohio, Molly Bluhm--yes, the Molly Bloom, transplanted new surroundings--begins her day by wondering...

Serving time.(Hey, Waitress! The USA from the Other Side of the Tray)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Hey, Waitress! The USA from the Other Side of the Tray by Alison Owings. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002, 334 pp., $29.95 hardcover. What motivated Alison Owings to undertake this project? As a journalist, she writes,...

Ones of a kind.(Bachelor Girl: The Secret History of Single Women in the Twentieth Century)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Bachelor Girl: The Secret History of Single Women in the Twentieth Century by Betsy Israel. New York: William Morrow, 2002, 294 pp, $24.95 hardcover. More so than any other living arrangement," writes journalist Betsy Israel, "the single...

Reaching out, looking in.(It Wasn't All Dancing and Other Stories)(Lily in the Desert: Stories by Annie Dawid)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... It Wasn't All Dancing and Other Stories by Mary Ward Brown. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2002, 142 pp., $24.95 hardcover. Lily in the Desert: Stories by Annie Dawid. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2001,...

Daughter of the Outer Banks.(two poems)(Poem)
December 1, 2002... Daughter of the Outer Banks For Dorcas E. Carter You are marsh elder and meadow cord grass blown by crosscurrents over the desolate island's sands; salty as the soil of the coastal plain, and as cunning as the black-crowned...

No more just so stories.(Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn About Sex from Animals)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn About Sex from Animals by Marlene Zuk. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002, 238 pp., $24.95 hardcover. Growing up in India, I remember our feast for the crows each year during...

In their own voices.(Sista, Speak! Black Women Kinfolk Talk About Language and Literacy)(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... Sista, Speak! Black Women Kinfolk Talk About Language and Literacy by Sonja L. Lanehart. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002, 252 pp., $22.95 paper. Literacy has been important in my life for as long as I remember, from bedtime...