On Being Told That Her Second Husband Has Taken His First Lover
pharminatrix got me thinking, in a recent post, about authors whose work interests me but whom I haven't remembered to put on my list of Authors to Read. When I was in high school, I had a dog-eared, several-pages-long list of authors to read, mostly culled from reading the Sunday NYT Book Review. I'm still upset with myself for losing the List. I don't know what rabbit-hole it's been tucked into at my parents' house. Oh, boo. I don't read the NYTBR anymore, as I find that its reviews are too short to go into much of a substantial discussion.
Anyway. So pharminatrix recommended Dawn Powell, whom I've been meaning for years to read. I keep forgetting to put her on my mental list. So I decided to try to keep a running, informal poll to link from my livejournal userinfo page, in which passersby could suggest a book or writer or two.
I recommend Tess Slesinger. She's most famous for her 1934 novel, The Unpossessed (which I have on my shelves but haven't read yet) as well as for her screenplay adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She died very young, at forty years old. I discovered her when I was working in the university library during the summer before sophomore year. Her volume of short stories had been misshelved, and I found it stuck in a totally different section than where it belonged. Its title (see: title of this journal entry) was striking, and I bet it was even scandalous back when the collection was published. The title story was sassy, and smart, and wise, and conversational, and really changed things for me that summer. I had just had my first real heartbreak, and was reading all sorts of trashy Erica Jong brisket out of righteous but misdirected anger. Then I discovered Tess Slesinger, and was a little sad that she was only a sidenote in the literary history of the 1930s. But I felt a little proprietary too, as if that thick volume of stories were my secret to keep.
Now you go.
Anyway. So pharminatrix recommended Dawn Powell, whom I've been meaning for years to read. I keep forgetting to put her on my mental list. So I decided to try to keep a running, informal poll to link from my livejournal userinfo page, in which passersby could suggest a book or writer or two.
I recommend Tess Slesinger. She's most famous for her 1934 novel, The Unpossessed (which I have on my shelves but haven't read yet) as well as for her screenplay adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She died very young, at forty years old. I discovered her when I was working in the university library during the summer before sophomore year. Her volume of short stories had been misshelved, and I found it stuck in a totally different section than where it belonged. Its title (see: title of this journal entry) was striking, and I bet it was even scandalous back when the collection was published. The title story was sassy, and smart, and wise, and conversational, and really changed things for me that summer. I had just had my first real heartbreak, and was reading all sorts of trashy Erica Jong brisket out of righteous but misdirected anger. Then I discovered Tess Slesinger, and was a little sad that she was only a sidenote in the literary history of the 1930s. But I felt a little proprietary too, as if that thick volume of stories were my secret to keep.
Now you go.