The Women's Review of Books articles from March 2002

The Women's Review of Books archives from March 2002

The world we have lost.
March 1, 2002... The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001, 611 pp., $29.95 hardcover. They were enormous fun," family friend Lord Longford said of the Mitfords. Biographer Mary Lovell agrees, and is...

The banality of evil.(Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement)
March 1, 2002... Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement by Kathleen Blee. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002, 268 pp., $35.00 hardcover. I used to mock the concept of extremist racism-"as opposed...

Daily desperation.
March 1, 2002... Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance by Beverly Bell. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002, 272 pp., $39.95 hardcover. On any day in Haiti, you might see what I saw there one morning: a woman walking...

State of emergency: Who will declare war on terrorism against women?
March 1, 2002... The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule. Walter Benjamin (1) The atrocities of September 11 were gender-neutral on the victim side. Women were people...

New worlds, old conflicts.(Nekropolis; A Woman's Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and about Women)
March 1, 2002... Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh. New York: Eos, 2001, 257 pp., $25.00 hardcover. A Woman's Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and about Women edited by Connie Willis and Sheila Williams. New York: Warner, 2001, 320 pp., $12.95 paper. ...

Unsentimental journeys.
March 1, 2002... The Low Road: A Scottish Family Memoir by Valerie Miner. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2001. 259 pp., $26.95 hardcover. In her fiction and essays, Valerie Miner has focused her attention on women's lives, and she...

Unsafe and illegal.
March 1, 2002... Happening by Annie Ernaux, translated by Tanya Leslie. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001, 95 pp., $18.95 hardcover. It's hard to forget your first abortion. The memory of that, experience haunts coming-of-age accounts of life before the...

Tropical hybrid.
March 1, 2002... Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares by Carmen L. Oliveira, translated by Neil K. Besner. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002, 200 pp., $26.00 hardcover. The story of how...

Innocent bystanders.
March 1, 2002... Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans edited by Erica Harth. New York: Palgrave, 2001, 303 pp., $24.95 hardcover. From a diversity of perspectives, this book's seventeen essays approach a singular...

Winter Climate.(Poem)
March 1, 2002... This morning Jill at the photo lab and Guadeloupe at the newsstand join Phil, the super, and Greg, who serves me, first, at the coffee shop. All of them love me. They me love the way the policeman who watches me pass Waverly...

The fabric of history.
March 1, 2002... The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001, 501 pp., $35.00 hardcover. In the opening chapter of The Age of Homespun, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich...

Enigma variations.
March 1, 2002... My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson by Alfred Habegger. New York: Random House, 2001, 763 pp., $35.00 hardcover. Emily Dickinson's mysteriously complicated life and keen intelligence merit the many books that have...

Fatal attractions.
March 1, 2002... Flirting with Danger: Young Women's Reflections on Sexuality and Domination by Lynn M. Phillips. New York: New York University Press, 2001, 253 pp., $55.00 hardcover, $19.00 paper. Teaching women's studies often provides me with snapshots...

Not just a pretty face.(The Girl on the Magazine Covet: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media)
March 1, 2002... The Girl on the Magazine Covet: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media by Carolyn Kitch. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001, 252 pp., $18.95 paper. The cover is a magazine's most important...

Undressed in the Cloisters.(Poem)
March 1, 2002... I am showing you everything as it occurs to me, so it comes out unfinished, the truth before the hoop skirt of fiction covers its long legs, concealing its shape. I have ditched the corset and dispensed with the slip....