The Women's Review of Books articles from October 2003

The Women's Review of Books archives from October 2003

Zelda comes into her own.(Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise by Sally Cline. New York: Arcade, 2002, 492 pp., $27.95 hardcover. One of the most enduring, and romanticized, images we have of early 20th-century art and culture is that of the Jazz Age. Consider...

Letters.
October 1, 2003... Dear Editor: "At 70, knowing what I know, such anxieties seem so pointless that I am able to enjoy some of the freedoms I discovered on that island smack in the middle of New York City. On impulse, last weekend I spent an entire day...

Where are the women? The strange case of the missing feminists. When was the last time you saw one on TV?
October 1, 2003... The neutral voice in America is the white male," The Nation columnist Katha Pollitt recently told me when I asked her about political opinion-making in the US since 9/11. "Everyone else is providing color commentary. A woman's opinion about...

White ladies traveling?(four books on women's travel)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003, 156 pp., $6.95 paper. Letters to Henrietta by Isabella Bird, edited by Kay Chubbuck. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003, 356 pp., $18.95 paper. ...

Makeover politics.(Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery )(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery by Kathy Davis. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003, 159 pp., $21.95 paper. The thrill of before and after photos is hard to resist; just seeing them is...

Gender and survival.(Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust by Nehama Tec. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003, 438 pp., $35.00 hardcover. Resilience and Courage is Nehama Tec's fifth book about the Holocaust, and it reflects her years of...

Old Mexico.(No One Will See Me Cry)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... No One Will See Me Cry by Cristina Rivera-Garza, translated by Andrew Hurley. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 2003, 229 pp., $15.95 paper. In one of Agustin Casasola's haunting photographs, eight ragtag camp followers, soldaderas,...

Photographing horror.(Regarding the Pain of Others)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, 131 pp., $20.00 hardcover Susan Sontag is concerned with the "innumerable opportunities a modern life supplies for regarding---at a distance, through...

First-person stories.(Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy by Tricia Rose. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003, 398 pp., $25.00 hardcover. As a rule, I don't write reviews in the first person. What was at first my obedient response...

The morality of class.(The Syntax of Class: Writing Inequality in Nineteenth-Century America)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... The Syntax of Class: Writing Inequality in Nineteenth-Century America by Amy Schrager Lang. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003, 152 pp., $45.00 hardcover. To 19th-century reformers in the United States, class did not have much...

Lost and found.(Helen Hunt Jackson: A Literary Life)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Helen Hunt Jackson: A Literary Life by Kate Phillips. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003, 370 pp., $34.95 hardcover. Thanks to the unflagging work of feminist historians, we have an increasingly full and fair accounting of...

Sacred doubt.(Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. New York: Random House, 2003, 241 pp., $24.95 hardcover. Doubt has always seemed to me to be central to the religious experience--to the intuition and perhaps even the...

The price of success.(Having It All? Black Women and Success)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Having It All? Black Women and Success by Veronica Chambers. New York: Doubleday, 2003, 240 pp., $23.95 hardcover. Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem by bell hooks. New York: Atria Books, 2003, 226 pp., $23.00 hardcover. In...

The expanding Buffyverse.(Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Loathing in Sunnydale)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Loathing in Sunnydale edited by James B. South. Chicago: Open Court Press, 2003, 335 pp., $24.95 hardcover, $17.95 paper. It's official: It is now safe for smart people to watch TV. For...

The Afflicted Girls.(Poem)
October 1, 2003... The Afflicted Girls Some said it was Unnatural Rebellion against God and Man, sprung from a Stubbornness of Mind or unmaidenly Pride, but this Affliction had no Natural Cause, hence no Earthly remedy, the...

New blues, old photos.(Outlandish Blues)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Outlandish Blues by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003, 50 pp., $12.95 paper. Bellocq's Ophelia: Poems by Natasha Trethewey. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2002, 48 pp., $14.00 paper. Honoree...

Ministerial and female.(Grace: A Memoir by Mary Cartledgehayes)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Grace: A Memoir by Mary Cartledgehayes. New York: Crown, 2003, 304 pp., $23.00 hardcover. Before becoming a minister, Mary Cartledgehayes was a docetist, someone who believes Jesus' body was different from that of other humans. As such,...

Cooking with joy.(Manly Meals and Mom's Home Cooking: Cookbooks and Gender in Modern America )(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Manly Meals and Mom's Home Cooking: Cookbooks and Gender in Modern America by Jessamyn Neuhaus. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, 344 pp., $42.95 hardcover. Made from Scratch: Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American...

"A Hand Half in Darkness".(Poem)
October 1, 2003... "A Hand Half in Darkness" from "A Winter Light" by John Haines The year always begins for me in September when loss is fully apparent, deliquescent light sliding back into its house of bone. Winter retreat coming on....

Away From the Dayshift's Bullhorn and Dazzle.(Poem)
October 1, 2003... Away From the Dayshift's Bullhorn and Dazzle At night, alone in our own rooms, we lie quietly, no other to watch us listen as the dark talks solemnly to the moon or the wind steps lightly outside the window. This is...

New England life.(The Life and Writings of Betsey Chamberlain: Native American Millworker)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... The Life and Writings of Betsey Chamberlain: Native American Millworker by Judith A. Ranta. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003, 284 pp., $18.95 paper. Who were the women who contributed to the Lowell Offering, one of America's...

Black feminism 101.(Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities by Johnnetta B. Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003, 304 pp., $24.95 hardcover. Johnnetta Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall's Gender Talk...