Heterosexual Desire in Fiction

The following discussion of novels depicting women's heterosexual
desire took place on WMST-L in December 2001.  For additional WMST-L
files available on the Web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

Dear All,

I am teaching an undergraduate class "Sex: Power, Pleasure, Politics" next
semester, and I'm looking for a novel that focuses on heterosexual desire in
a complicated yet postive way (if that's possible). By "positive" I mean
that the writing emphasizes women's sexual desire for men rather than
focusing on abuse or assault (although that might be part of the story). I
already considered "Fear of Flying" any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks.
Jacqueline Ellis
Women's and Gender Studies
New Jersey City University
Jersey City, NJ 07305
(201) 200 3170
jellis  @  njcu.edu

I hope you don't think this is a goofy suggestion, but what about "Gone
With the Wind"?  I recall from the book (that I last read a hundred years
ago) that the main story was about Scarlett O'Hara chasing that wimpy
Ashley Wilkes, desiring him so intensely that she even misread her own
nature and his lack of passion for her.  The novel is complicated for other
reasons (race, the controversial scene when Brett carries her up the
stairs, etc.) but I don't ever recall seeing such a clear-cut example of a
woman desiring a man and moving mountains to get him.  Except for maybe
more classic literature:  _Wuthering Heights_, Cathy's desire for
Heathcliff, or _Middlemarch_, the marriage of Dorothea' with her first
husband, Mr. Casaubon, though her character can be read as having a deep
desire for learning more than for her husband.

On that score, I am reminded of someone who once said (I can't remember who
it was) that the great love stories of literature are really stories of
male obsession.  But what am I doing in this conversation...literature is a
bit off my beat.

Rosie

I suggest Mary Gordon's novel "Spending" (1998), which not only deals
with issues of female heterosexual desire complicated in this case by
economic inequity (among other things), but also the artistic
representation of the desirable/eroticized male nude (the protagonist
is a fictionalized contemporary feminist artist). Good luck!

Kim Rhodes
--
Kimberly Rhodes
Assistant Professor of Art
Hollins University
PO Box 9564
Roanoke, VA 24020
phone: 540.362. 6617
fax: 540.362.6465
krhodes  @  hollins.edu

I know there are good reasons to seek "a novel" for class
discussion.  But when the subject is "heterosexual desire in a
complicated yet positive way" it seems to me that a single novel
isn't the best way to explore the topic. No doubt there will be many
suggestions offered by the members of WMST, so why not offer
students the option to read any one of these novels and to bring
that novel's understandings/illustrations to the class discussion? 
Recognition of the similarities and differences is better than
presenting a single novel as some sort of exemplar.

JoAnn Castagna
joann-castagna  @  uiowa.edu

You might try "Summer," by Edith Wharton. I read this recently and
thought it was wonderful.

Marc Sacks
msacks  @  world.std.com

A very interesting novel, which, among other of its complex interlocking
themes,  focuses on a woman's sexual desire, is Philip Roth's The Human
Stain.
DP
---------------------------------
daphne.patai  @  spanport.umass.edu

<< Middlemarch_, the marriage of Dorothea' with her first
 husband, Mr. Casaubon, though her character can be read as having a deep
 desire for learning more than for her husband. >>

I don't think Dorothea's passion for ugly old dried-up Casaubon can be read
as sexual, but try Maggie Tulliver, the heroine of The Mill on the Floss,
whose passion for a handsome rake ruins her life.  Another George Eliot
character, Hetty in Adam Bede, is similarly attracted to a rake, and people
have pointed out the connection between her and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester
Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.  Naturally, the punishment for a woman's
misguided passion in those days was humiliation and often pregnancy.  But
that's the 19th century.  The 18th century was much more tolerant of lusty
women - how about Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe?
I think these classic novels would work best with JoAnn's suggestion that
each student report on a different novel.  That way, the class could examine
what has changed and what has stayed the same in terms of how female
heterosexual desire has been and is being portrayed.

Shirley Frank

Have you considered Marge Piercy's "Vida," which examines relationships,
reasons for relationships, and a time (the 60's and 70's)undergraduates
cannot really picture as well as a way of thinking that is not familiar but
becomes so in the course of the novel. The power, pleasure, and politics are
both social and personal. Another of her novels that might work is "Small
Changes," which is, I think, more personal, though the personal is always
political.  There's a double agenda here -- when many people think of
feminism they think of marching and raised fists and women screaming, and
they don't associate with that.  To understand that feminism became
mainstream during a time when this sort of action was mainstream helps
students understand that feminism looks and behaves differently in different
times.

Marilyn Grotzky
Auraria Library
mgrotzky  @  carbon.cudenver.edu

I am interested in these responses as well, so please continue to post
them to the whole list!

Two texts that I'd recommend and have used in different classes are
Laura Esquivel's *Like Water for Chocolate* (there's a good film,
also) and Julia Alvarez's *How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.*

I have used the Rhett carrying Scarlett up the staircase passage of
GWTW as an example of the glamorization of rape (since that film still
has many passionate adherents, esp. in my part of the country).

Anya Silver

*******************************************
Dr. Anya Krugovoy Silver
Assistant Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies
Director of Women's and Gender Studies
Mercer University
1400 Coleman Ave.               "Tell me, what is it you plan to do
Macon, GA 31207-0001            with your one wild and precious life?"
(912) 752-5641                                         --Mary Oliver
silver_ak  @  mercer.edu

OK, so no one's mentioned contemporary romances. J.D. Robb's (Nora
Roberts) most recent book in the Eve Dallas series (_Seduction in Death_)
is a great example. Eve Dallas, the tough cop, works through her desire
and marriage while also dealing with childhood rape/incest. The bad guys
in this novel also play on women's desires by courting them online and
offering them the perfect romance. And Dallas' second-in-command, a great
character named Peabody, is also dealing with her own desire in a budding
relationship that conflicts with her friendship with a male companion,
the kind women pay for.

Clearly, the formula for romances supports the ideology of ideal
heterosexual coupledom. But there's an awful lot of desire that gets
portrayed, and in works by authors such as Roberts, Krentz, Richards -
also problematized, to a certain degree.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sandra D. Shattuck
shattuck  @  umbc.edu
research.umbc.edu/~shattuck

How about

1. Kate Chopin, The Awakening (focuses on a woman's sexual awakening.  It
does not end positively, but is good for background reading--to show the
courage of Chopin in depicting a (WASP white) woman from such a woman's
point of view, revising from a woman's perspective Gustave Flaubert's
masculinist Mme Bovary ), but not the ending where the sexual women have to
commit suicide.  Also see Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in this regard.  Great
sex followed by obligatory death for the women.

2. Bharati Mukherjee, Jasmine (with a positive ending, for a change, this
time a contemporary take-off on Mark Twain's having Huck Finn  "light out
for the territory."  Great for class discussion--students get activated with
different opinions about this ending-- because Jasmine "lights out" with a
man she is in love with, leaving behind a man who loves her and who is
wheel-chair bound, leaving behind women's training (both in India and the
U.S., in this case) as an obligation to nurture, leaving masochism behind,
etc.

Would you consider broadening the parameters of heterosexual desire  to
include queries which might provoke  lively class discussion (and maybe
there are listers who could supply the answers),  like the following, for
example:

1. When and where in the world in various cultures writers could writers
finally depict women as having sexuality and "getting away with it," i.e.,
as having full and free self expression as sexual beings, not be ostracized,
not kill themselves off or be killed off, and live happily ever after?

2. Is there any  work where a woman leaves her children for a man, but is
not depicted as evil for doing so, AND  her life works out?

3. Does anyone know of a work where a man and a woman fall in love and live
happily ever after,  where the woman is old(er)  and the man is young?

Off the top of my head I know of Margaret Fuller, George Eliot, Jenny
Churchill, (Winston's mother), the  German film director Leni von
Riefenstahl (sp?), a French singer whose name I can't remember who was
famous for "La Vie En Rose," and Georgia O'Keefe, the artist--and a film
from the 70's with Ruth Gordon called Harold and Maude, but no book.

4.  What are the greatest tabus culturally (not harmful to others, such as
pedophilia)  facing women in terms of fulfilling heterosexual desire?


Dr. Phillipa Kafka
Professor Emerita
Kean University
pkafka  @  lvcm.com

This question looks like fun.

3. Does anyone know of a work where a man and a woman fall in love and live
happily ever after,  where the woman is old(er)  and the man is young?

Off the top of my head I know of Margaret Fuller, George Eliot, Jenny
Churchill, (Winston's mother), the  German film director Leni von
Riefenstahl (sp?), a French singer whose name I can't remember who was
famous for "La Vie En Rose," and Georgia O'Keefe, the artist--and a film
from the 70's with Ruth Gordon called Harold and Maude, but no book.

Margaret Fuller drowned (I think she was happy enough until the shipwreck);
I have read that John Cross regretted his proposal and attempted suicide
either before his marriage to Marian Evans or in the early days of the
marriage; Jenny Jerome Churchill's marriage was not happy; according to
Steiglitz (probably misspelled) and O'Keeffe: An American Romance, O'Keeffe
did not want to marry and her husband (who was, I thought, considerably
older) refused her the children she wanted while openly admiring women who
were mothers; and I think Edith Piaf's younger husband was her third and she
was in poor health through most of the marriage.  It doesn't give me much
hope for Leni von Riefenstahl.

If these examples were from literature, we would know that God or society or
fate punished these women for their transgressions.  Since the examples are
from real life -- does that make it better or worse?

Thinking twice, O'Keeffe's relationship with a younger man was with Juan
Hamilton, often called her companion.  I've probably missed some others too.

Unless other information has proven this false since I read anything about
them, I understand that Benjamin Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, 14 years
his senior, had a happy marriage.  Queen Victoria was older than Albert, but
only by a few months.  Then there's Elizabeth and Essex, but he came to a
bad end.

In any case, the list of questions was very interesting and should generate
some nice class discussions.  Oh -- speaking of relationships and desire,
what about "The Women's Room"?

Marilyn Grotzky
Auraria Library
mgrotzky  @  carbon.cudenver.edu

I just thought of a great story by Toni Cade Bambara called "My Man
Bovanne" in her collection _Gorilla My Love_, where the older mom gets
criticized by her politically correct children not to flirt with Bovanne,
a blind older man in the community -- and the mom talks about the true
meaning of community, which is folks like Bovanne doing little things on a
daily basis, like fixing a child's broken roller skate or someone's radio.
Great story about desire, politics, generations, community.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sandra D. Shattuck
shattuck  @  umbc.edu
research.umbc.edu/~shattuck

You might also consider Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were
Watching God." It deals with the several heterosexual relationships
in which the protagonist is involved (with varying degrees of
desire). It is both positive and realistic, not to mention a great
read.

Marnie Binfield
Women's Studies
San Diego State University
San Diego CA
binmax  @  flash.net

Do the texts for the course have to restrict the relationships to "legal,"
"patriarchal" notions of marriage, so long as the woman is fulfilled in her
desire?

Margaret Fuller was not "legally" married to her young Italian "husband," a
nobleman, whose family disowned him because of their relationship, but she
was very happy with him.  He accompanied her together with an infant son on
the trip back to the U.S. and all of them drowned in a storm off the NJ
shore. Trivialized and condescended to by Emerson who depicted Fuller
stereotypically  as an ugly old maid whom no man would look at, it is a
shame that Fuller never had the opportunity to bring her "husband" and child
around to her circle and live afterwards.
There have been questions as to the necessity for Fuller's drowning--that
she might have been saved-- but that she chose to go down with her man.
Perhaps ultimately, subconsciously, she could not bear to face the social
disapproval, the ostracism, the outrage, to which she would have exposed
herself from family, friends, and culture.

Robert H. Hudspeth has just edited an edition of her selected letters, My
Heart Is A Large Kingdom," Cornell UP.  I have not read this text, but I
have read Fuller's letters years ago, and they are wonderful for the course,
if it  would go back that far and would include letters and memoirs.

 Also, I was thinking of the very young male Native American?
assistant/companion always seen with/serving O'Keefe's needs until her
death, and not her husband.

Marilyn, are you referring to Jenny Churchill's marriage to her young last
husband, or to her marriage to Sir Randolph Churchill, her syphilitic first
husband,  when you state that her marriage was unhappy? I thought her last
marriage was happy until she died.

Also, I fell that the good thing about Piaf's last marriage was that, yes,
she did ail and die, but not because of a bad conscience, as would be
depicted in literature, or being ostracized.  But still she was nursed and
cared for and adored, etc. by her young husband who died tragically shortly
afterward in a car crash. I fantasy that he was still grief-stricken and
unconsolable.

As for Leni von Riefenstahl,  I saw a documentary on her a few years ago and
she APPEARED to be very happy with her young lover/husband? They were
depicted together in their home and also scuba diving. She must be in her
eighties by now.

But, still, all these relationships are history, not literature, unless
class discussions can include such relationships without being connected to
any known text which such relationships as the ones above would illustrate.
The question is, are there such texts?

Phillipa.

Dr. Phillipa Kafka
Professor Emerita
Kean University
pkafka  @  lvcm.com

Dear all

Have been reading the responses with interest and am curious as why no
one has suggested the work of Anais Nin (unless she is considered
inaccessible for undergraduates). While it has been a while since I have
read her, and have not read all of her work, she certainly writes about
desire, passion and usually it is heterosexual.  Just wondering?

Janet Forbes
janetforbes  @  stn.net

I forgot about Nin!  (I who read all her diaries when I was in college.)

I also thought of Dorothy Sayers' heroine, Harriet Vane (I think that was
her name), from the Peter Wimsey mysteries

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rosa Maria Pegueros, J.D., Ph.D.
Department of History
    & Women's Studies Program
217C Washburn Hall
80 Upper College Road, Suite 3
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881
         E:mail: pegueros  @  uri.edu
         Phone:(401) 874-4092
         Fax  :(401) 874-2595
Web pages:
http://www.uri.edu/personal/rpe2836u/
http://nick.uri.edu/artsci/wms/pegueros.htm

Hi.  This discussion has included some comments on the possibility
of older woman/younger man happiness.  While US culture does not
seem to promote too much "ever after" happiness, there are some
demographic measures one could look at to examine what people are
actually doing outside of novels and the lives of the rich and
famous.  For instance, a student or a group could do some research
in the local newspaper or courthouse, examining the marriage license
records for information on local practice--what are the age
distributions?  how often do younger men and older women marry?  One
might even do a longitudinal study, to see if any of the marriages
turn up later in divorce decrees.  I believe a search in the
sociological abstracts will provide historical comparisons about age
at first marriage and age of partners.

JoAnn Castagna
joann-castagna  @  uiowa.edu

Hi all,
I'm pretty sure *Harold and Maude* was a novel too--I remember
reading it as a pre-adolescent, so it may well be for a younger
audience.  My very favorite novelistic representations of
heterosexual desire are not in novels *about* that desire, per se, so
I don't know how helpful this will be.  Still:

Toni Morrison's *Beloved*--Sethe and Paul D's relationship is
incredible.  When I read the novel for the first time, I was caught
by the description of Paul D as a man women knew they could talk to.
And his love and desire for Sethe is gentle and constant.

Gloria Naylor's *Mama Day*--although this is also not a "love story"
or a novel about hetero desire, the love story that frames the
narrative involves a man and a woman who are equals and who respect
each other.

Pearl Cleage's *What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day*--although
this novel has some other weaknesses (primarily a rather sanitized
representation of living with AIDS), the central "love story" in this
novel is also egalitarian, respectful, emotionally healthy, and it
involves a woman who is HIV-positive.

If I were teaching about desire, I would certainly include Sonia
Sanchez' haiku.  Hers are some of the sexiest poems about
heterosexuality that I have read.  I would recommend her 1998
collection *Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums* and her 1978
collection *I've Been a Woman*.

This is not a novel, but: in Nancy Mairs' *Waist-High in the World*,
she provides perspective from "waist-high"--seated in a wheelchair.
In this collection of essays, she does talk about sexuality and
desire.  I highly recommend this.

Best of luck with this--it sounds like a fun class!
Jeannie

Dear All
This is a very useful discussion. I am saving these messages in a file.
I teach a cap stone course in feminist methods and theory. Last time we (me
included) each selected a paper back romance novel and did a content
analysis  in terms of character formation, gender roles etc. And then
discussed why women choose to read these while according to publishers men
readers are very rare.
I also used Reinharz' book which is good but either out of press or the
publisher cannot deliver. Here is my question:  what analytical article
would you recommend to go with this exercise if any?
Thanks

Shahin Gerami
Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Southwest Missouri State University
Springfield, MO 65804
Phone:417-836-5145
Fax  :417-836-6416

What about The Color Purple?  Desire of all kinds there, and lack of desire.
Marilyn Grotzky
Auraria Library
mgrotzky  @  carbon.cudenver.edu


You might also consider Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were
Watching God." It deals with the several heterosexual relationships
in which the protagonist is involved (with varying degrees of
desire). It is both positive and realistic, not to mention a great
read.

Marnie Binfield

This came to me and was intended for us all -- doubly interesting
information about Dorothy Richardson.

Marilyn Grotzky
Auraria Library
mgrotzky  @  carbon.cudenver.edu

> On 18 Dec 2001, Marilyn Grotzky wrote:
> > This question looks like fun.
>
>  Since the examples are
> > from real life -- does that make it better or worse?
>
> Another example from "real life":
>
> The early 20th-century English novelist Dorothy Richardson was happily
> married to a younger man, an artist (in the style of Aubrey Beardsley)
> named Alan Odle.
>
> Another important point about Richardson: it was about her work (an
> extended autobiographical novel called _Pilgrimmage_) that
> James's term
> "stream-of-consciousness" was first applied, by the critic
> May Sinclair in
> the 19teens.  It always bothers me how Woolf or Joyce or
> Proust is said to
> be the mother/father of the stream-of-consciousness novel.
>
> An excellent biography of her was written in the early 80s by
> Gloria Fromm,
> who, before her death, taught in Chicago.
>
> FWIW,
> Julie
>
> <^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^<^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^
> >^>^>^>^>^>^>
> ^>^>
>
> Julie K. Daniels
> English Department
> 3300 Century Ave. N.
> Century College
> White Bear Lake, MN  55110
> danie029  @  umn.edu
>
> "Earthworms are so pleasant."  Zoe K. Daniels, age 3

There's a great short essay by Margaret Atwood, called "Women's Novels,"
that would work really well with this exercise.  It was published in
Harper's Magazine, May 93, pp 32-3.

Best,

Jeana DelRosso
jdelrosso  @  ndm.edu

Re Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Finally we have a book that is
not only excellent for JoAnn's purposes--a first-rate novel that the
students will enjoy discussing, one that eminently fits your criteria for a
hetero relationship, in a complicated but positive way.

It also happens to answer my query about whether a text exists where there
is a successful hetero relationship between an older woman and younger man,
which is a cultural tabu in many cultures and certainly heavily, heavily
discouraged and discounted in the U.S.

You might also consider pairing Their Eyes with Hurston's Dust Tracks on the
Road, her autobiography, or using this text as a supplemental, background
reading if you teach Their Eyes.

Dust  reveals that Their Eyes was based on Hurston's own life and
experiences with her husbands--the first husband, an old farmer, the
energetic egomaniacal mayor of Eatonville, Fla.(based on her father, its
founder and mayor).  And  finally  the great love of her life, the young
Teacake, based on her last, younger husband who beat her.  The marriage
failed, but Their Eyes, written just after the break-up, is Hurston's
tribute to that relationship.

Also, In my last message, I should have written LORD Randolph Churchill,
not SIR Randolph Churchill.

Also, Dr. Rosa suggested Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Whimsey, and I was
wondering for those of you who are detective fans, whether the successful
and enduring second marriage of Agatha Christie to Max Mellors is reflected
in HER work?  She was deserted by her first husband, so you see, sometimes
the older, abandoned woman does get her own back, instead of conforming to
Dickens' Estelle Havisham model.

And wouldn't that be nice to find in literature, too, for the students to
read and discuss?  I'm sure the Havisham model is engraved in their (our)
minds like stone.  I for one would love to see all these coded cultural
stereotypes about relationships and age and sex and race, etc., destablized.

And apparently you can use so many different genres that work for you
against the grain (in this one small aspect of the thread, you can have an
excellent class discussion on the ageist culture model on TV--the (generally
white middle class) old woman who is always "fabissina," lonely, deserted,
abandoned, repulsive, asexual, or smiling alone and happy in her kitchen,
always wearing a round lace collar a la Norman Rockwell (usually 50-
year-old models used to depict 75- year-old women), or the arthritic old
woman going dancing after taking her pills with her bald, old husband, or
gardening).   Latinas? Asians?  And black older women? [Judging from this
thread, African American women writers appear to be the pioneers in
attacking successful hetero relationship stereotypes]. Come to think of it
there is a popular book, written for pop consumption, made into a movie,
called How Stella Got Her Groove Back, I think, by Terry McMillan, on this
very  topic. But of course the older woman is a glamorous 40 something year
old (Huh?  THIS is older? and her young future husband, 22).

Dr. Phillipa Kafka
Professor Emerita
Kean University
pkafka  @  lvcm.com

There's a great short essay by Margaret Atwood, called "Women's Novels,"
that would work really well with this exercise.  It was published in
Harper's Magazine, May 93, pp 32-3.

Best,

Jeana DelRosso
jdelrosso  @  ndm.edu

JoAnn writes that "there are some demographic measures one could look at to
examine what people are actually doing outside of novels and the lives of
the rich and famous.  For instance, a student or a group could do some
research in the local newspaper or courthouse, examining the marriage
license records for information on local practice--what are the age
distributions?  how often do younger men and older women marry?  One might
even do a longitudinal study, to see if any of the marriages turn up later
in divorce decrees.  I believe a search in the sociological abstracts will
provide historical comparisons about age at first marriage and age of
partners."

But why are you confining yourself to hetero "marriage"? What percentage of
male-female relationships in the U.S.  today are not  "legally sanctioned"
relationships? Is this possible to determine by looking at marriage
licenses, court records of divorces, etc.?

If such a class assignment does not include "significant others" in  the
definition for hetero  relationships, but only "legal," patriarchal
"marriages," it would miss a significant number of hetero relationships that
have not been legalized.  [I have to confine myself to the U.S. because I do
not consider myself capable of theorizing on patterns of training in this
regard in other countries]

Certain U. S. students might find interesting and educational upon research
and hearing anecdotal/historical evidence in class that different age
"disparities" exist in the U.S. from what they were trained are "normative"
and "natural" in hetero relationships, but they would still be fixed in the
unconscious, internalized association of "legal marriage" as necessary for
enduring hetero relationships because that has been inscribed into them.

Phillipa.



Dr. Phillipa Kafka
Professor Emerita
Kean University
pkafka  @  lvcm.com

If you're looking for an older woman-younger man pairing, I would
strongly recommend the recent French film *Venus Beauty Institute* (a
film that I can't imagine being produced in this country).  It is also
good for general discussions of beauty and aging. There was also a
good short piece by Natalie Angier in last week's New York Times
Magazine on the fact that older men are paired with increasingly young
women in films. You can probably still get this article if you search
NYT online.  Actually, Angier's *Woman: An Intimate Geography* is
great on female desire and sexuality. There's a somewhat cheesy
chapter on the clitoris/female orgasm if you want to examine
physiological aspects of desire. My students LOVED this book, felt
very empowered by it. I have also taught sections of Radway's *Reading
the Romance* to discuss the narrative "romance plot" in literature,
esp. romance novels. This works well in comparison/contrast with
Bronte's Jane Eyre, which I would always recommend for discussions of
heterosexual romance and love.

Anya Silver

 *******************************************
Dr. Anya Krugovoy Silver
Assistant Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies
Director of Women's and Gender Studies
Mercer University
1400 Coleman Ave.               "Tell me, what is it you plan to do
Macon, GA 31207-0001            with your one wild and precious life?"
(912) 752-5641                                         --Mary Oliver
silver_ak  @  mercer.edu

I wonder if books like _Ahab's Wife_ and _The Red Tent_ would make sense

under this heading. They are also about relationships among women,
embodied femininity, matrilineage, etc., but they are shaped around
relationships between men and women. It might be interesting to consider

why these are so popular among the general readership right now. Other
contemporary examples might include _The Binding Chair; or, a Visit from

the Foot Emancipation Society_ or any number of choices by Oprah's book

club. _The Most Wanted_ would be really good - about the lengths to
which a woman's desire to be "the most wanted" will lead her away from
self, family, security, peace. Another Nancy Mairs title worth looking
at for this topic would be her memoir, _Remembering the Bone House: An
Erotics of Place and Space_.

Lisa Johnson
------------
Visiting Assistant Professor
Dept. of English
State University of West Georgia
Carrollton, GA 30118
--------------------
ljohnson  @  westga.edu
http://www.westga.edu/~ljohnson
---------------------