The Women's Review of Books articles from July 2003

The Women's Review of Books archives from July 2003

Special issue: Women Aging.(Women Aging)(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... In The quality of Life Report (reviewed on page 25 by Amanda Nash), comic novelist Meghan Daum asks, "Is 37 the new 26?" Or, as I've heard friends of mine, somewhat older than Daum, hopefully put it, "Is 60 the new 50?" Several of the authors...

Thoughts at 70: A woman with a past? Or one with a future?(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... What is old, anyway? Is 70 old? I used to think so, but now I'm not sure. Age is so confusing. Despairingly I described myself at 25 as "a quarter-century old," while the gravity of turning 50 compelled me to reinvigorate my life, then...

The House of Elder Artists: The challenge of making a daydream into reality.(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... The project is called THEA--The House of Elder Artists--and it is the creation of a group of New York artists and activists who have been working for some years to build a not-for-profit senior residence in Manhattan for women and men in the...

Catching zzzs: Women lie awake and wonder; why is most sleep research conducted on men?(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... Insomnia affects twice as many women as men. Yet 75 percent of sleep research (according to a 2003 report for the National Institutes of Health) has been conducted on men. The standard textbook for sleep studies, Principles and Practices of...

Scrabble with my mother: what the words really spell.(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... I love it when my mother beats me at Scrabble, because it proves that at 89, she's just as sharp as ever. I hate it when my mother beats me at Scrabble because she plays a crabbed, competitive game, making three or four words with each move,...

Voices of Our Own: Mothers, Daughters, and Elders of the Tenderloin Tell Their Stories.(Women Aging)(Excerpt)
July 1, 2003... Nancy Deutsch with photographs by Kathrin Miller "Lose yourself in the words and images of Voices of Our Own, and you'll never again walk through any struggling neighborhood without seeing the richness and hearing the dreams." -Gloria...

A tale of two accidents: Injury at 20 is not the same as injury at 55.(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... An ordinary morning in Syracuse, New York. The kettle was on. I decided to whip down the basement stairs to start the washing machine. Stairs with a rail, but a rail set back in a recess. A brick wall at the bottom, so you have to make a sharp...

Praying For The End Of Anger.(Women Aging)(Poem)
July 1, 2003... Praying for the end of anger "A woman is her mother," poet Anne Sexton once wrote. But is that fate inevitable? Hunger I It was 1913 and there was no money. She was born a runt who vomited everything, So much...

Friends for life: how female friendship evolves from youthful crushes to the deeper relationships of years.(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... Since I am a writer, my earliest memories of friendship are memories of books. Certainly, growing up as a black girl in the 1970's and early 1980's, the books that changed my life were powerful meditations on women and friendship: The Color...

The poet at 80: A tribute to the aging poet Marie Ponsot is full of the imagery of vigor and growth.(Women Aging)(Critical Essay)
July 1, 2003... This 'poem was written for the poet Marie Ponsot on her 80th birthday. Since then, she has published Springing a volume of new and selected poems, and enlivened the intellects and imaginations of several more groups of students at Barnard...

For The 6th April.(Women Aging)(Poem)
July 1, 2003... For the 6th of April for Marie Ponsot Eden is pots and tubs on the terrace. Tenacious seeds root, wind-strewn, to bloom around the flcus. Light and shade from this and every decade cross and dapple the notebook you hold...

Mary grows up: The virgin in her later years.(Blessed Virgin Saint Mary)(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... Icons never age. Especially not the Virgin Mary. In the cultural imagination, she is always in her 20s--a Renaissance artist's ethereal dream, nothing at all like the dark-skinned, hard-muscled Middle Eastern peasant adolescent she really was....

My "old ladies": As writers age, they find ways to continue their work.(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... It is early May, and I am seated in a large room filled with over 700 women and a few men, almost all over the age of 60, with a few heading towards 100. It is the annual Alumni Association luncheon celebrating the 133rd birthday of Hunter...

Running out of time: Reaching the age of acceptance and pendulous earlobes.(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... Thirty-two years ago I wrote an article about managing time. One expert advised that no piece of paper on a desk should ever be touched more than once. It is perhaps my complete failure to follow that advice that explains the fact that I own a...

Taking a U-turn: The aging woman as explorer of new territory.(feminist view on aging)(Women Aging)
July 1, 2003... Heilbrun, Carolyn C. I have been a feminist for most of my adult life, which makes my drift away from feminism in my middle 70s a bit strange, even to my eyes. Not that I do not work politically for feminism now as ever, perhaps more while...

No regrets: Which ambitions and possessions are important, and which are not, was a lesson learned in an unlikely setting--Hollywood.
July 1, 2003... In August 1984, I rented the second bedroom of a small Los Angeles condo belonging to Edythe Kemp. Mrs. Kemp, 88 years old and known affectionately as "Kempy"--was somewhat of an LA legend. She told me that she was the first African American...

Caring for the caretakers.(No Place Like Home? Feminist Ethics and Home Health Care)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... No Place Like Home? Feminist Ethics and Home Health Care by Jennifer A. Parks. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003, 184 pp., $29.95 hardcover. Two years ago, barely settled in California, I responded to a call from the United...

Home, difficult home. (Reviews).(Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home by Janisse Ray. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2003, 308 pp.; $22.00 hardcover. Having escaped the Georgia junkyard where she grew up, Janisse Ray returned looking for simplicity,...

The cook's tale.(The Book of Salt)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Book of Salt by Monique Truong. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, 256 pp., $24.00 hardcover. In first person narration, voice is character. The voice may coax or ravish or prompt our outrage, compel us with its understated sincerity,...

Literature, as survival.(Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. New York: Random House, 2003, 347 pp., $23.95 hardcover. Women can't: wear nail polish, run up stairs, board a bus by the front door, sit in a cafe with a man not their...

Not exactly "lite" reading.(The Quality of Life Report)(The Porno Girl and Other Stories)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum. New York: Viking, 2003, 309 pp., $24.95 hardcover. The Porno Girl and Other Stories by Merin Wexler. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003, 225 pp., $22.95 hardcover. Perhaps you're in the...

Bugging out.(The Bug)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Bug by Ellen Ullman. New York: Doubleday, 2003, 368 pp., $23.95 hardcover. Halfway through The Bug, programmer Ethan Levin is desperate to fix an error that freezes his company's hot new software. The company, Telligentsia, is going...

Looking for Kath.(The Photograph)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Photograph by Penelope Lively. New York: Viking, 2003, 231 pp., $24.95 hardcover. The two central characters of The Photograph are a landscape historian and a garden designer, quintessentially British occupations whose concerns mirror...

Imagination vs. reality.(Clara: A Novel)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... Clara: A Novel by Janice Galloway. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002, 425 pp., $25.00 hardcover. On the verso of the title page of her novel, Clara, Janice Galkway writes: "This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and...

Separating church and state.(The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair by Bryan F. Le Beau. New York: New York University Press, 2003, 386 pp., $29.95 hardcover. Forty years ago this summer, millions of Americans believed that the Antichrist had captured the United States...

Living with autism.(Tilt)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... Tilt by Elizabeth Burns. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2003, 275 pp., $22.00 hardcover. From the first page of Elizabeth Burns' debut novel Tilt, we know that something has gone terribly wrong in protagonist Bridget Fox's life....

Sex among the ancients.(The Virago Book of Erotic Myths and Legends)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Virago Book of Erotic Myths and Legends edited by Shahrukh Husain. London: Virago, 2003, 295 PP., $14.95 paper. It seems what we once called "erotica" has undergone a slow, meandering death beneath the crushing weight of amateur...

Into the blue.(The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Space Flight)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Space Flight by Martha Ackmann. New York: Random House, 2003, 227 pp., $24.95 hardcover. At the heart of the American dream is the belief in opportunity. This is...

Some anti-Bridgets.(Coffee and Kung Fu)(We Can Still Be Friends)(Thoughts While Having Sex)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... Coffee and Kung Fu by Karen Brichoux. New York: New American Library (Penguin/Putnam), 2003, 256 PP., $12.95 paper. We Can Still Be Friends by Kelly Cherry. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003, 288 pp., $24.00 hardcover. Thoughts...

A postmodern challenge.(All Night Movie)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... All Night Movie by Alicia Borinsky, translated by Cola Franzen with the author. Evanston, IL: Hydra Books, Northwestern University Press, 2002, 201 PP., $15.95 paper. All Night Movie begins when a woman gets out of prison, though not like...

A travelers tales.(A Visit to Don Otavio: A Traveller's Tale from Mexico)(Pleasures and Landscapes: A Traveller's Tales from Europe)(A Legacy: A Novel)(Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... A Visit to Don Otavio: A Traveller's Tale from Mexico by Sybille Bedford. New York: Counterpoint, 2003 (originally issued 1953), 370 PP., $16.00 paper. Pleasures and Landscapes: A Traveller's Tales from Europe by Sybille Bedford. New York:...

Spicing it up.(The Mango Season)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... Sarvate, Sarita The Mango Season by Amulya Malladi. New York: Ballantine, 2003, 229 pp., $22.95 hardcover. Indian immigrant literature has reached its apex in America today. Many Indian American writers cannot help wondering how long...

Formal but unconstrained.(Calendars)(Flux)(Little River, New and Selected Poems)(Against Love Poetry)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... Calendars by Annie Finch. Dorset, VT: Tupelo Press, 2003, 70 pp., $14.95 paper. Flux, Poems by Cynthia Hogue. Kalamazoo, MI: New Issues Press, 2002, 51 pp., $14.00 paper. Little River, New and Selected Poems by Linda McCarriston. ...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2003... To the editor: We want to publicly express our gratitude to Linda Gardiner. She created and sustained over two decades a truly important institution in Western feminism; very few people could have translated such a vision into the...

Raiment. (Alice James Books).(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 1, 2003... RAIMENT Alice James Books Celebrating 30 Years of Poetry Nothing subtle in it. The pink oleander pushing up, each cup a flushed petal mocking the skin on my neck. Red belladonna. Parade of violets like rows of girls...

The Adonis Fish. (Alice James Books).(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 1, 2003... THE ADONIS FISH Alice James Books Celebrating 30 Years of Poetry There is peace between us when we're sleeping. Even the wavelets beating my face are soothing my brain. Odd how the giant bird becomes dear frind in...