The Women's Review of Books articles from May 2004

The Women's Review of Books archives from May 2004

The penance of speech.('The Dew Breaker')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004, 244 pp, $22.00 hardcover. Aristide's desperate struggle to govern in Haiti is barely mentioned in Edwidge Danticat's new novel. Her focus is mostly on the ways in which...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... Dear Editor, Thanks to Carol Cohn (Women's Review, February 2004) for recognizing the extraordinary initiatives women around the world are engaged in as we try to leverage the potential of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 for the social...

Sojourner Tubman and Harriet Truth.('Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom,' 'Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories' and 'Bound for the Promised Land' )(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton. New York: Little, Brown, 2004, 288 pp., $25.95 hardcover. Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Jean M. Humez. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003, 458 pp.,...

Off-off Broadway.('Holy Terrors: Latin American Women Perform')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Holy Terrors: Latin American Women Perform edited by Diana Taylor and Roselyn Costantino. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, 445 pp., $23.95 hardcover. In Holy Terrors, editors Diana Taylor and Roselyn Costantino have assembled 26...

Motherless daughters.('Occasions of Sin: A Memoir,' 'Wishing for Snow' and 'Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories from a Decade Gone Mad')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Occasions of Sin by Sandra Scofield. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, 256 pp, $24.95 hardcover. Wishing for Snow by Minrose Gwin. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2004, 230 pp, $24.95 hardcover. Rescuing Patty Hearst:...

Howe's "battle-him".('Diva Julia: The Public Romance and Private Agony of Julia Ward Howe')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Diva Julia: The Public Romance and Private Agony of Julia Ward Howe by Valarie H. Ziegler. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003, 228 pp., $24.00 hardcover. In a patriarchal society in which girls and women are carefully and...

Three debuts.('Fools and Crows,' 'Granted' and 'Miracle Fruit')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Fools and Crows by Terri Witek. Washington, DC: Orchises, 2003, 79 pp., $14.95 paper. Granted by Mary Szybist. Farmington, ME: Alice James, 2003, 58 pp., $13.95 paper. Miracle Fruit by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Dorset, VT: Tupelo Press,...

A shaman writes biography.('Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat by Paula Gunn Allen. New York: HarperCollins, 2003 Pocahontas was the Indian princess who saved the roguish Captain John Smith from certain death, only to be abandoned by him. Or so...

Pocahontas' voice: a conversation with Paula Gunn Allen.(Interview)
May 1, 2004... Paula Gunn Alien, of Lebanese and Laguna-Pueblo descent, has been tremendously productive as a poet, a writer, and a spokesperson for women's and Native American issues. ALlen has published almost 20 books, including five books of poetry and...

Reporting in the flesh.('Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land by Amira Hass, edited and translated by Rachel Leah Jones. Los Angeles: semiotext(e), 2003, 208 pp., $14.95 paper. Amira Hass describes herself as "an expert in Israeli...

Extreme makeovers.('The Pursuit of Perfection: The Promise and Perils of Medical Enhancement')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Pursuit of Perfection: The Promise and Perils of Medical Enhancement by Sheila Rothman and David Rothman New York: Pantheon, 2003, 292 pp., $25.00 hardcover. This January, in a surprise move, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...

Pepper in the soup.('Millicent Fenwick: Her Way' and 'Fire in My Soul')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Millicent Fenwick: Her Way by Amy Schapiro. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003, 282 pp., $29.00 hardcover. Pat Schroeder: A Woman of the House by Joan A. Lowy. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2003, 216 pp.,...

The Masticate.(Poetry)(Poem)
May 1, 2004... The Masticate In the days, waiting, every move in the house led to the clerestory window, where a nest turned its insides to me. In an orbit of sticks, shredded debris, in a clutch of pink rhododendrons, in the...

Class.(Poetry)(Poem)
May 1, 2004... Class I lasted two days minding a child at the Beach Club on the thin strand of sand, where my family lived but did not belong. I took the job my older sisters held before me, my sisters, who sat every summer,...

Labor feminist foremothers.('The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America by Dorothy Sue Cobble. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004, 325 pp., $29.95 hardcover. Was Myra Wolfgang, the feisty international vice president of...

Putting guts into the machine.('Women, Art and Technology')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Women, Art and Technology edited by Judy Malloy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003, 541 pp., $39.95 hardcover. The title of this review originated with Melbourne computer artist Linda Dement, who speaks for a large segment of...

Cheatin' hearts, single hearts.('Against Love: A Polemic' and 'Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis. New York: Pantheon, 2003, 207 pp., $24.00 hardcover. Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics by Sasha Cagen. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004, 159 pp., $19.95 hardcover. ...

Beyond Elizabeth Taylor.('Cleopatra Dismounts' and 'Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Cleopatra Dismounts by Carmen Boullosa, translated by Geoff Hargreaves. New York: Grove Atlantic, 2004, 192 pp., $22.00 hardcover. Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon by Francesca T. Royster. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,...

Ask and tell.('Officially Gay: The Political Construction of Sexuality by the US Military' and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military')(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Officially Gay: The Political Construction of Sexuality by the US Military by Gary L. Lehring. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003, 229 pp., $19.95 paper. Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military edited by Aaron...

Andrea Barnet, All-Night Party: the Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Andrea Barnet, All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin, 2004, 260 pp., paper. A sympathetic exploration of the lives of women in New York City when feminism took hold of the...

Lyn Mikel Brown, Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection Among Girls.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Lyn Mikel Brown, Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection Among Girls. New York: New York University Press, 2003, 259 pp., hardcover. Using interviews with 421 girls of vastly different socio-economic, racial, and geographical backgrounds, Brown...

Elinor Burkett, So Many Little Enemies, So Little Time: an American Woman in All the Wrong Places.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Elinor Burkett, So Many Little Enemies, So Little Time." An American Women in All the Wrong Places. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004, 325 pp., hardcover. Burkett lived in the Russian-speaking country of Kyrgyzstan immediately following...

Sharron Dalton, Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do to Control the Epidemic.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Sharron Dalton, Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do to Control the Epidemic. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004, 292 pp., hardcover. Dalton begins this informative, scholarly, yet accessible...

Madeleine Gagnon, trans. Howard Scott and Phyllis Aronoff, Women in a World at War: Seven Dispatches from the Front.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Madeleine Gagnon, trans. Howard Scott and Phyllis Aronoff, Women in a World at War. Seven Dispatches from the Front. Vancouver, BC, Canada: Talonbooks, 2003, 319 pp., paper. Beginning with a preface by Benoite Groult that equates war with the...

Marybeth Holleman, The Heart of the Sound: an Alaskan Paradise Found and Nearly Lost.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Marybeth Holleman, The Heart of the Sound: An Alaskan Paradise Found and Nearly Lost. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2004, 209 pp., hardcover. Holleman originally traveled to Alaska with her husband to work at Denali National...

Judith Strasser, Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Judith Strasser, Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004, 350 pp., hardcover. Combining Strasser's journal entries from the time when she was in an abusive marriage and her commentary ten...

Melissa Walker, ed., Country Women Cope with Hard Times: a Collection of Oral Histories.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Melissa Walker, ed., Country Women Cope with Hard Times: A Collection of Oral Histories. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2004, 208 pp., hardcover. Through a series of interviews with 17 women born between 1890 and 1940 into...

Martha Ward, Voodoo Queen: the Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Martha Ward, Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2004, 246 pp., hardcover. With a lively and vibrant narrative voice, Ward tackles the mystery that surrounds the mother and daughter of...

Marjorie Weinberg, The Real Rosebud: the Triumph of a Lakota Woman.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Marjorie Weinberg, The Real Rosebud: The Triumph of a Lakota Woman. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 86 pp., hardcover. A friend and student of Rosebud Yellow Robe, Weinberg tells the story of the woman whose name, many believe,...

Michelle M. Wright, Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora.(The Bookshelf)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Michelle M. Wright, Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004, 280 pp., paper. Examining works by both black and white writers and thinkers in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean,...