Synopses & Reviews
Among the most prominent icons of the American south is that of the southern belle, immortalized by such figures as Scarlett O'Hara, Dolly Madison, and Lucy Pickens (whose elegant image graced the Confederate $100 bill). And yet the women of America's south iave always defied pat generalization, no more readily forced into facle categories than women in the country's other regions.
Never before has a book of southern history so successfully integrated the experiences of white and non-white women. Among the myriad subjects addressed in the book are black women's suffrage, the economic realities of Choctaw women, female kin and female slaves in planters's wills, the northern myth of the rebel girl, second wave feminism in the South, and southern lesbians. Bringing to light the lives of Cherokee women, Appalachian "coal daughters," and Jewish women in the South, the essays all but one published in this book for the first time, ensure that monolithic representations of southern womanhood are a thing of the past.
Filling a crucial gap in southern history and women's history, Women of the American South is a valuable reference and pedagogical aid for a wide range of scholars and students.
Review
"The broadest and most inclusive portrait yet of women's identities and stories in the region. . . a considerable achievement." -American Historical Review,
Review
"A wonder...I was seduced by its tantalizing elusiveness, its audacity, its sheer brio...a spellbinding, verbal sleight of hand as satisfying as it is serpentine."-The Washington Post Book World,
Review
"Bertha Harris has created a woman's world as relaxed and sisterly and funny as [Joan] Didion's is tense and controlled. [She] presents a utopian vision of a world where women are in charge of themselves, and where, it is nice to note, they are very good company indeed." -The New York Review of Books,
Review
"Violent, funny, beautiful, intelligent."-Jane Rule,
Review
"Harris, an American equivalent of Monique Wittig,...is ingenious, sardonic, parodic. [She] explores the various roles women have played: grandmother, mother, daughter, sister, wife and second wife, businesswoman in man's clothing, prostitute, factory worker, movie star, muse and tutelary spirit, warrior, artist, fake saint, martyr."-Catharine R. Stimpson,
Review
"The introduction [is] by turns funny, sad, moving, and outrageous...[Harris] illuminates the New York women's art and literary scene of the late sixties and seventies; the introduction alone is worth the price of the book. Altogether, Lover is everything a seduction should be—smart, unpredictable, witty, provocative:and sexy." -Carolyn Allen,University of Washington
Synopsis
A landmark work of lesbian literature, Lover was first published in 1972 by the now-defunct feminist press, Daughters, to tremendous critical acclaim. Emerging out of the women's and gay liberation movement alongside the early work of such writers as Rita Mae Brown and Jill Johnston, the novel features fictional and historical characters who run the gamut from saint to poor white trash, and who are by turn vulnerable and strong. One of the finest examples of early post-Stonewall lesbian fiction, Lover is poised to entice a new generation of readers.
In this new edition, Harris reintroduces her work, providing engaging background on the cultural and personal milieu in which it was produced and painting a scathing and witty picture of the book's original publisher. Revealing the real-life personalities behind some of the novel's characters, the introduction is an amusing retrospective sure to entertain those who remember the heady post-Stonewall days, and to enlighten younger readers.
About the Author
Founder of The Journal of Women's History, Christie Ane Farnham is Associate Professor of History at Iowa State University. Currently at work on a history of African American women, she is the author of The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education in the Antebellum South, also available from NYU Press.