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“Smart ... compelling ... persuasive .” —New York Times Book Review She’s everywhere once you start looking: the trainwreck. She’s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying “crack is whack,” and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself. From Mary Wollstonecraft—who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman—to Charlotte Brontë, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, Sady Doyle’s Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to “behave.” Where did these women come from? What are their crimes? And what does it mean for the rest of us? For an age when any form of self-expression can be the one that ends you, Doyle’s book is as fierce and intelligent as it is funny and compassionate—an essential, timely, feminist anatomy of the female trainwreck.
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year This “witty, engaging analysis” of female monsters in pop culture offers “provocative and incisive” commentary on society’s fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe that’s a good thing. Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illumi...
"I'm so many people. They shock me sometimes. I wish I was just me!" --Marilyn Monroe Nearly sixty years after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains an icon whom everyone loves but no one really knows. The conversations gathered here--spanning her emergence on the Hollywood scene to just days before her death at age 36--show Monroe at her sharpest and most insightful on the thorny topics of ambition, fame, femininity, desire, and more. Together with an introduction by Sady Doyle, these pieces reveal yet another Marilyn: not the tragic heroine she's become in the popular imagination, but a righteously and justifiably angry figure breaking free of the limitations the world forced on her.
Casey Plett’s 2018 novel Little Fish won a Lambda Literary Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and the Amazon First Novel Award (Canada). Her latest work, A Dream of a Woman, is her first book of short stories since her seminal 2014 collection A Safe Girl to Love. Centering transgender women seeking stable, adult lives, A Dream of a Woman finds quiet truths in prairie high-rises and New York warehouses, and in freezing Canadian winters and drizzly Oregon days. In “Hazel and Christopher,” two childhood friends reconnect as adults after one of them has transitioned. In “Perfect Places,” a woman grapples with undesirability as she navigates fetish play with a man. In “Couldn�...
“A collection of viewpoints aimed at piercing the fug of misogyny and racism that has held sway after the 2016 election.” —Elle (The Best Books to Read This Fall) When 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump and 94 percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton, how can women unite in Trump’s America? Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward. Featuring essays by REBECCA SOLNIT on Trump and his “misogyny army,” CHERYL STRAYED on grappling with the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s loss, SARAH HEPOLA on resisting the urge to drink after th...
When society makes monsters, sometimes the monsters bite back! Marion Angela Weber accompanies her sister Wendy to a feminist retreat on a remote island seeking perspective and empowerment, but a disastrous first night leaves Marion frightfully changed. In the aftermath of an assault, Marion begins to transform as an unspeakable hunger crawls through her body. When the townsfolk recognize there's something different about Marion, they react with suspicion, then violence, while ignoring the monsters already among them. Writer Jude Ellison S. Doyle (Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers) and artist A.L. Kaplan (Full Spectrum Therapy, Heart of Gold) unleash Maw, a status-quo-shattering tale examining the consequences of sexist violence and the subjugation of marginalized genders, and what happens when the wounded are backed into a corner. Collects Maw #1-5.
'This sly, exhilarating novel takes on slut-shaming . . . and manages to be hilarious in the process' People 'It's brilliant and hilarious . . . It has a heart. And a spine. It's exactly what we need more of right now.' Chicago Tribune 'A smart, intersectional feminist tour de force' Washington Times This is the story of five women . . . Meet Rachel Grossman. She'll stop at nothing to protect her daughter, Aviva, even if it ends up costing her everything. Meet Jane Young. She's disrupting a quiet life with her daughter, Ruby, to seek political office for the first time. Meet Ruby Young. She thinks her mom has a secret. She's right. Meet Embeth Levin. She has made a career of cleaning up her congressman husband's messes. Meet Aviva Grossman. The Internet won't let her or anyone else forget her past transgressions. This is the story of five women...and the scandal that binds them together. From Gabrielle Zevin, the bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, comes another story with unforgettable characters that is particularly suited to the times we live in now.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year “Smart, funny, and fearless.” —THE BOSTON GLOBE Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe that’s a good thing.... Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein’s “domineering” mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, starvi...
Diana, the ethereal, larger-than-life feminist commune leader, prepares Marion to become the vessel for all of the rage and suffering of the commune -- and of women everywhere. Marion and the other women on the commune take their revenge on Chuck and Howie as scapegoats for the sins of mankind. But will their brutal justice resolve the seemingly endless cycle of violence, or will it continue until it devours the entire island—and perhaps even the entire world?
“No one writes about the subjects of sexuality, desire, the shadow, and diabolism with such relish, and when I read her words I feel both smarter and less afraid of my own ‘tabooed’ feelings and thoughts. Like a cat, Kristen sees in the dark, as she guides us gracefully forward with her vision of unapologetic, feminine power.” —From the Foreword by Pam Grossman, author of Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power The cat: A sensual shapeshifter. A hearth keeper, aloof, tail aloft, stalking vermin. A satanic accomplice. A beloved familiar. A social media darling. A euphemism for reproductive parts. An epithet for the weak. A knitted—and contested—hat on millions o...