With summer on the horizon, now is the perfect time to compile a reading list. This time around, I’ve decided that my list is open to female writers only. I don’t need to get into a diatribe here about how female authors are ignored, or forgotten. So what if the rise of the English novel is credited to women at home who wanted to read? My reality is, when I look at the list of the world’s important books, I feel under-read. When I see a list of women who have written novels, I feel uneducated. So this summer, I plan to educate myself. Here are some suggestions for books written by women who deserve to be remembered.
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, 1854-55
Gaskell was the first person to write a biography of Charlotte Bronte, but she was a great novelist in her own right. North and South is about industrialism and social class, and the clash between profits and people–which all sounds very familiar. Thanks to my niece for the recommendation!
Jesse Redmon Fauset, There is Confusion, 1924
I remember studying the Harlem Renaissance in college and having my white, suburban brain blown. But I didn’t get a chance to read Fauset then, so I’d like to rectify that now. Fauset was the literary editor of The Crisis—the official magazine of the NAACP, founded by W. E. B. Du Bois. There is Confusion is considered the first Harlem novel, and examines the lives of the African-American middle class.
Sylvia Townsend Warner, Summer Will Show, 1936
I’m not familiar with Warner, and this book doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry, which is why it’s on the list. But the Goodreads descriptions sounds wild: “Sophia Willoughby, a young Englishwoman from an aristocratic family and a person of strong opinions and even stronger will, has packed her cheating husband off to Paris. He can have his tawdry mistress. She intends to devote herself to the serious business of raising her two children in proper Tory fashion.Then tragedy strikes: the children die, and Sophia, in despair, finds her way to Paris, arriving just in time for the revolution of 1848. Before long she has formed the unlikeliest of close relations with Minna, her husband’s sometime mistress…”
Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado, 1958
This novel is about a young woman living it up in Paris, and I can’t wait to read it. As if the premise isn’t enough, Groucho Marx said this: “I had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm).”
Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero, 1975
El Saadawi is an Egyptian Muslim feminist writer, activist, physician, and psychiatrist–and I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of her. But the opening of this book is too compelling to ignore: “All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up.”
This will have to be an ongoing blog, because there are just too many great women to name here! Please comment with your recommendations, and I’ll post them periodically. Happy reading!
Don’t forget a little Josephine Tey. Daughter of Time is great, but really all of her books are fantastic. British mystery writing at its best!
For those that might enjoy stories about real women, my favorite is Karen Lindsey’s Divorced Beheaded Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII. Simply amazing!!