The Women's Review of Books articles from September 2002

The Women's Review of Books archives from September 2002

The war at home.(Enemy Women: A Novel)
September 1, 2002... Enemy Women: A Novel by Paulette Jiles. New York: William Morrow, 2002, 336 pp., $24.95 hardcover. Historical novels are not for everyone. Civil War novels in particular seem to bring out the ire in some folks, with their underbellies of...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2002... To the Editor: I want to express my concern with text in the ad on p. 14, July 2002. The display copy concludes with a note that the author "lives with her family in Ma'aleh Adumim, Israel." I believe it is inconsistent with the values of...

Looking for the revolution.(Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz)
September 1, 2002... Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. San Francisco: City Lights, 2002, 440 PP., $17.95 paper. It is almost thirty years since the end of the Vietnam War and an era of extraordinary tumult in US culture...

Common-sense columnist: Ann Landers taught self-respect to generations of women.
September 1, 2002... She told us what to do for 46 years. She was a compassionate listener, a Jewish mother and a scolding aunt. But she was also a reliable institution, a model of good common sense, and often the first column we turned to at the breakfast table....

Taking back our bodies.(Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Heath Movement in the United States, 1969-1990)
September 1, 2002... Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Heath Movement in the United States, 1969-1990 by Sandra Morgen. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002, 320 pp., $60.00 hardcover, $24.00 paper. Today, women's health is a profitable and visible...

Multiple personality.(Surviving Madness: A Therapist's Own Story)
September 1, 2002... Surviving Madness: A Therapist's Own Story by Betty Berzon. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002, 242 pp., $27.95 hardcover. Betty Berzon's autobiography chronicles two lives: the one Berzon lived while denying her...

Writing between the lines.(Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid)
September 1, 2002... Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid. Dominating this latest work by Jamaica Kincaid are two sounds that are not words or even syllables of a word, but mere utterance. "Eh, eh," says Mr. Potter repeatedly, to himself, to his employers, to his...

True believer, false hopes.(My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back)
September 1, 2002... My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back by Mary M. Leder, edited by Laurie Bernstein. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001, 344 pp., $19.95 paper. May you live in interesting times" goes the old Chinese...

Team spirits.(Sister Circle: Black Women and Work edited by Sharon Harley and The Black Women and Work Collective)
September 1, 2002... Sister Circle: Black Women and Work edited by Sharon Harley and The Black Women and Work Collective. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002, 320 Pp., $22.00 paper. Sharon Harley and the Black Women and Work Collective have put...

Fantasy lives.(The Deadly Space Between by Patricia Duncker)
September 1, 2002... The Deadly Space Between by Patricia Duncker. New York: Ecco Press, 2002, 256 pp., $23.95 hardcover. I love this book. It's my favorite kind of writing in so many ways. Patricia Duncker has fun with language and writing techniques. She...

The changers and the changed.(Disciplining Feminism: From Social Activism to Academic Discourse)
September 1, 2002... Disciplining Feminism: From Social Activism to Academic Discourse by Ellen Messer-Davidow. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, 404 pp., $21.95 hardcover. The ways in which social transformation takes place in autocratic societies are...

Critical nostalgia.(Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors)
September 1, 2002... Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors by Edvige Giunta. New York: Palgrave, 2002, 203 pp., $18.95 paper. What is Italian American writing? What stories does it tell? Who's writing it? Twenty years ago, readers...

Back to the grassroots.(Women and the Politics of Class)
September 1, 2002... Women and the Politics of Class by Johanna Brenner. New York: Monthly Review Foundation, 2001, 330 pp., $19.95 paper. Johanna Brenner is one of the few feminist theorists today who integrates a class analysis into a theory of male...

For My Father.(Poem)
September 1, 2002... For My Father My dad is the prince of one hundred fairy tales My father is a knife My dad is the water of all the rivers Which twist like snakes My dad is the tallest tree up to the sky Under its shadow I get my sunshine My dad...

The gender of divorce.(For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered)
September 1, 2002... For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered B. Mavis Hetherington John Kelly. New York: W W Norton, 2002, 307 pp., $26.95 hardcover. This is the book to give to your sister whose marriage seems to you to be strangling her,...

Leaving home, coming home.(In Praise of New Travelers: Reading Caribbean Migrant Women's Writing)
September 1, 2002... In Praise of New Travelers: Reading Caribbean Migrant Women's Writing by Isabel Having. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001, 374 pp., $22.95 hardcover. Isabel Hoving has written a thoughtful, meticulously researched and...

Memory wars.(Telling Incest: Narratives of Dangerous Remembering from Stein to Sapphire)
September 1, 2002... Telling Incest: Narratives of Dangerous Remembering from Stein to Sapphire by Janice Doane and Devon Hodges. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001, 164 pp., $49.50 hardcover, $18.95 paper. What are the social and narrative...

The bookshelf.(Review)
September 1, 2002... Each month we list the recently published books received during the preceding month or so which we think readers of the Women's Review will want to know about. This is, however, a very partial selection of the books by and about women published...