An incisive collection of writing about how women’s anger “doesn’t have to be useful to deserve a voice.”
An editor and journalist gathers 22 essays from a diverse group of contemporary women writers about the nature of modern female rage.
Catapult contributing editor Dancyger creates a cathartic space for both well- and lesser-known writers to express the various ways in which their anger has manifested in their lives. The opening essay, Leslie Jamison’s “Lungs Full of Burning,” sets the tone for the rest of the book. For years, Jamison took pride in being “someone who wasn’t prone to anger” until she realized that the sadness she often felt was really a manifestation of a rage society would not let her own. Monet Patrice Thomas follows Jamison with a discussion of how society considers angry black women to have “an attitude” and how, in general, they are allowed to feel only one emotion: fear. Reclaiming anger—and an abused body—is at the heart of Rios de la Luz’s essay “Enojada,” which details her experiences with sexual molestation suffered at the hands of her mother's boyfriend. In “On Transfeminine Anger,” Samantha Riedel describes the rage she felt as a gender-confused boy and then in the early years of her trans womanhood, when she railed against “the forces of misogyny and transphobia” only to end up hurting people she cared about. Destructive as anger can be, Reema Zaman shows how it can also liberate. Zaman depicts the moment she stood up to her bullying husband and told him, “I was born for life beyond you.” In “The Color of Being Muslim,” Shaheen Pasha talks about her rage at “the suffocating expectations of others,” both within and without the Pakistani American community, who saw her as being too Muslim or not Muslim enough. Powerful and provocative, this collection is an instructive read for anyone seeking to understand the many faces—and pains—of womanhood in 21st-century America.
An incisive collection of writing about how women’s anger “doesn’t have to be useful to deserve a voice.”Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-58005-893-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
An entertaining and affecting story of a remarkable American Indian family. Starita, a longtime reporter for the Miami Herald, combines oral history with his own reporting and research to chronicle one Lakota family's history from the early 19th century to the present. The Dull Knifes are warriors. At the center of this book is Guy Dull Knife Sr. Now 96 and in a nursing home, he remembers the horrors of being mustard-gassed during WW I and then returning home, having fought for a country that didn't consider him a citizen. Starita also tells of the first Dull Knife, who fought with Crazy Horse against the US Army in the 1860s. Signing the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the chief promised never to `` `sharpen his knife' against the whites,'' a promise he kept, refusing to join the fight at Little Bighorn. Sent to Indian Territory (current-day Oklahoma), his people found conditions unbearable, and in 1878, harassed by the US Army, Dull Knife led his people on a desperate 600-mile trek back to their homelands in the mountains of Wyoming and Montana. His son, George Dull Knife, after witnessing the carnage of Wounded Knee in 1890, went on to tour with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Guy Jr. played cowboys and Indians in the 1950s—when even Indian boys wanted to be John Wayne. He was drafted in 1968 and fought for real in Vietnam. Like many Indians, he was forced to walk ``point'' at the head of columns; the highly vulnerable position was assigned to Native Americans because of their supposed skill as hunters and trackers. Still struggling with his war experience 25 years later, Guy is now an accomplished artist. Both Guy Sr. and Jr. participated in the siege of Wounded Knee in 1973, a 71-day crisis after which Indians won the right to reopen the treaty of 1868. (For a history of another Lakota family, see Leonard Crow Dog's Crow Dog, p. 285.) Starita tells the Dull Knifes' story in remarkable and affectionate detail, maintaining a balance between the history of a people and the history of a family. (Book-of-the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club/History Book Club selections)
Pub Date: April 19, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14010-7
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
An erratically presented survey of gay and lesbian experiences in schools across the country. In interviews with students, teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, school nurses, and parents, journalist Woog explores the ways that schools deal with gay and lesbian issues. His portrait is accurately complicated, at once dispiriting and heartening. He finds that ``faggot'' and ``queer'' are still the most common insults in schools, that many teachers remain closeted on the job, and that education and group counseling efforts are often obstructed by the religious right. He talks to a student who was kicked out of a vocational high school for being gay, and another who, fag-baited and physically threatened, went to the guidance counselor for help and was told, ``You chose that lifestyle...You just have to take it.'' Fortunately, Woog also finds openly lesbian and gay coaches and teachers who are valued mentors to gay and straight students alike, some gay-positive curricula on both coasts, more support groups for gay and lesbian students, and a boy who became more popular after coming out because other kids admired his courage and ``girls thought it was cool to have a gay friend.'' The diversity of setting and experience keeps Woog's narrative lively: The milieus range from urban Boston English High School to elite East Coast prep schools to the Bible Belt and rural Montana. The problem is, Woog's renderings of people's stories are often confusing, with gaping holes in the narrative. In one instance, after reading a three-page profile of one teacher, we still don't really know why he went back in the closet. Throughout the book, the author fails to reconcile contradictory details and relates events in an illogical order. The stories themselves are admirably various, but Woog's spotty logic and narrative inconsistency make this a frustrating read.
Pub Date: May 8, 1995
ISBN: 1-55583-249-0
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Alyson
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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