A year or two ago I read Stephanie Grant's Map of Ireland, which I liked and admired, but don't remember all that strongly, and I didn't like and admire it enough to seek out other books by Ms. Grant. That was dumb because The Passion of Alice, her first novel is the perfect balance of cerebral and engaging. It's about a 25 year old in treatment for anorexia.
I don't usually read zines by men, not because I'm biased, although I am, but because most of my zine reading is for the Zine Collection at Barnard, which is comprised mostly of zines by women, with a few by people of other genders writing about femme identity. The author of Travesty is a cisgendered male who likes to wear women's clothes.
Vikki Law, who also edits a zine by and for incarcerated women called Tenacious, has written a dense (664 endnotes!), but eminently readable chronicle of the struggles and travails of women in prison.
This book is ridiculously informative, but be warned it is also meant to incite. As Vikki inscribed in my copy, "Remember, prisons don't fall on their own--they need that extra push!"
The second part of Maus is even more moving than the first.
Sometimes when I'm not excited by the book I'm reading, I can't help but grab something I know I like from my bookshelf. This time is was Maus, Art Spiegelman's graphic biography of his parents' life and times in Poland preceding and during Hitler's reign. The book also tells of Spiegelman's relationship with his difficult father.
Rivington Street starts out in pogrom ridden Russia and follows one family to the early twentieth century Lower East Side, with its pushcarts and Yiddish socialism. It is to some extent a tale of two sisters, one a garment factory union organizer and the other an aspiring clothing designer, a boss. The other strong women characters are the daughter of a selfish and sexist rabbi, a gentile suffragist, and Hannah, the old world mother of the two sisters, Sarah and Ruby Levy. I've read it a bunch of times, and it never disappoints me. I love entering the world of my grandfather's Lower East Side and the early struggles of the women's labor and suffrage movements.
We work as hard as any man; we think as well as any man; and we want every right and privilege the men have, including the privilege of making fools of ourselves every four years as they do by voting for capitalist parties that keep the chains fastened around their necks! p.255-56
I meant to write about the last issue Kate sent me, too. Since I never got around to it with #18, I'd better just get to #19 right away. I will start by saying LOVE Miranda. It's one of my favorite zines.
I don't review every zine I read on here, but I do try to get a few lines out about my favorites. Her Blues is one of those zines that like good poetry, art, etc. captures an experience in such a way that it resonates completely with something that you thought was yours only, and reading it you feel less like a freak, less alone.
While supervising a project to increase the lesbian fiction holdings at Barnard, I discovered this novel by Barnard professor Margaret Vandenburg. To my discredit, I'm kind of cloistered in the library and don't know much about what goes on on campus, but since Teresa Lee (LIS student whose project the lesbian fiction collection is) determined that the book has circulated sixteen times in the last six years, I guess there are plenty of people who know about Dr. Vandenburg's work.
