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The Women’s Review of Books Vol. XXI, No. 10-11 July 2004 74035 $4.00 I In This Issue Our Annual Summer Reading Issue is packed with reviews of novels, short stories, and poetry—books that engage the emotions and challenge the mind, yet won’t be seriously damaged if a little sand gets into the pages. I Painter Emily Carr is already well-known to Canadians. A new biographical novel and reissues— unexpurgated—of her essays promise to bring her unique work and life to the attention of people throughout North America and elsewhere. Cover story D I Reviewer Adrian Oktenberg says that Desesperanto, poet Marilyn Hacker’s latest collection, definitive- ly establishes Hacker as what the Drawing of herself by Emily Carr, 1901. From Opposite Japanese would call a National Contraries (Douglas & McIntyre, 2003). Living Treasure. p. 6. I With the novel Empress Orchid, Anchee Min embarks on a trilogy A Canadian original th based on the life of the late 19 - by Anne Marie Todkill century Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi—a controversial figure who Klee Wyck by Emily Carr. Berkeley, CA: Douglas & McIntyre, has been portrayed as enemy of the 2003, 152 pp., $8.95 paper. people, feminist hero—and The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland. New York: Chinese Empress Barbie. p. 24. Viking, 2004, 333 pp., $24.95 hardcover. I mily Carr, painter, writer, eccentric, future wife. Finding California not colonial I and more... and enigma, was born in the colonial enough and England (where the Carrs E city of Victoria in 1871—propitious- attempted to settle) not English enough, 07> ly, the year British Columbia joined the Richard built a respectable retreat for his Canadian confederation. She was the family on the fringes of Victoria, cultivating youngest and most favored of the five gardens and pastures on ten acres of land, daughters of Richard Carr, an Englishman until, as Emily would recount, he “took who left home at the enterprising age of 18 away all the wild Canadian-ness and made it 74470 74035 03 and roved the New World from Quebec to as meek and English as he could.” PRINTED IN THE USA Peru to San Francisco, where he met his continued on page 3 The Women’s Review Contents of Books Center for Research on Women Wellesley College 1 Anne Marie Todkill I Klee Wyck by Emily Carr; The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland 106 Central Street Wellesley, MA 02481 4 Letters (781) 283-2087/ (888) 283-8044 www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview 5 Gayle Pemberton I Pushkin and the Queen of Spades by Alice Randall Volume XXI, No. 10-11 July 2004 6 Adrian Oktenberg I Up to Speed by Rae Armantrout; Desesperanto: Poems 1999-2002 by Marilyn Hacker 8 Emily Toth I America’s Mom: the Life, Lessons, and Legacy of Ann Landers by Rick Kogan; EDITOR IN CHIEF: Amy Hoffman [email protected] A Life in Letters: Ann Landers’ Letters to Her Only Child by Margo Howard PRODUCTION EDITOR: Amanda Nash 9 Heather Hewett I Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [email protected] 10 Pamela J. Annas I Whose Names Are Unknown: A Novel by Sanora Babb POETRY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Robin Becker 12 Jewelle Gomez I Little Black Book of Stories by A. S. Byatt ADVERTISING MANAGER: 13 Leslie Lawrence I Referred Pain and Other Stories by Lynne Sharon Schwartz Anita D. McClellan [email protected] I 14 Enid Shomer Two poems OFFICE MANAGER: Nancy Wechsler [email protected] 14 Valerie Miner I Double Vision by Pat Barker STUDENT WORKER: Bethany Towne 15 Rebecca Steinitz I Emma Brown by Clare Boylan and Charlotte Brontë; The Brontë Myth by Lucasta Miller EDITORIAL MISSION: To give writ- 17 Andrea Potos I Two poems ing by and about women the serious crit- ical attention it deserves. We seek to rep- 18 Alison Hawthorne Deming I Trembling Air by Michelle Boisseau; Slave Moth: A Narrative in Verse resent the widest possible range of fem- by Thylias Moss; Bend by Natasha Sajé inist perspectives both in the books we choose to review and in the content of 20 Judith Grossman I Little Edens by Barbara Klein Moss; Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories by Joan Silber the reviews themselves. 22 Hiromi Goto I The Legend of Fire Horse Woman by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston ADVERTISING IN THE WOMEN’S REVIEW: Visit www.wellesley.edu/ 23 Andrea Freud Loewenstein I A Seahorse Year by Stacey D’Erasmo WomensReview to book an ad online; preview the current issue and classified 24 Lori Tsang I Empress Orchid by Anchee Min ads; and download a media kit including display, classified, and line rates, sizes 25 Marie-Elise Wheatwind I The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the and shapes, policies, and deadlines. Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin The Women’s Review of Books (ISSN 26 Edith M. Vásquez I ¡Caramba! A Tale Told in Turns of the Card by Nina Marie Martínez #0738-1433) is published monthly except August by The Women’s Review, 27 The Bookshelf Inc. Annual subscriptions are $27.00 for individuals and $47.00 for institu- tions. Overseas postage fees are an additional $20.00 airmail or $5.00 sur- Contributors face mail to all countries outside the US. Back issues are available for $4.00 PAMELA ANNAS teaches working-class literature, contemporary author of The Hottest Water in Chicago: Notes of a Native Daughter. per copy. Please allow 6-8 weeks for all women poets, and personal narrative at the University of ANDREA POTOS was recently awarded the James Hearst Poetry Prize subscription transactions. Massachusetts/Boston. Her books include A Disturbance in Mirrors: The from North American Review. Her poems have appeared in many journals Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Literature and Society; she is a member of the and anthologies including CALYX, Poetry East, and Green Mountains Periodicals class postage paid at Radical Teacher editorial collective. Review. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and is a longtime bookseller at Boston, MA and additional mailing ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING is the author of two books of A Room of One’s Own feminist bookstore. offices. poems and three books of nonfiction and is editor with Lauret E. Savoy ENID SHOMER is the author of five books, among them Stars at of The Colors of Nature. Her new book of poems Genius Loci will be pub- Noon: Poems from the Life of Jacqueline Cochran and Imaginary Men, which POSTMASTER: send address correc- lished in 2005. won the Iowa Fiction Award and the LSU/Southern Review Award. Her tions to The Women’s Review of Books, JEWELLE GOMEZ is the author of the black lesbian vampire novel, stories and poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, Center for Research on Women, The Gilda Stories, published in a special 13th anniversary edition this year Paris Review and other publications. Wellesley College, 106 Central Street, by Firebrand Books. Her recent collection of short stories is Don’t REBECCA STEINITZ is an associate professor of English at Ohio Wellesley, MA 02481. Explain. Visit her at www.jewellegomez.com. Wesleyan University, where she teaches 19th-century British literature, HIROMI GOTO is a novelist. She was born under the Fire Horse sign. feminist theory, and writing. One of her life goals is to visit Haworth. The Women’s Review of Books is a project JUDITH GROSSMAN is the author of How Aliens Think, a story col- ANNE MARIE TODKILL is an editor and writer in Ottawa, Canada. of the Wellesley Centers for Women. lection, and Her Own Terms, a novel. In an bygone era she spent her high school poetry prize money on Emily HEATHER HEWETT is a freelance writer and scholar in New York Carr’s The Book of Small. That was the end of poetry prizes but the begin- The Women’s Review is distributed by City. Her reviews and essays have most recently appeared in The ning of a fine obsession. Ingram, Nashville, TN. All other distri- Philadelphia Inquirer, Brain, Child, and The Scholar and Feminist Online. EMILY TOTH, Robert Penn Warren Professor of English at bution is handled directly by The LESLIE LAWRENCE teaches writing at Tufts and Lesley Universities. Louisiana State University, is the author or editor of ten books, includ- Women’s Review. She has a story coming out in the fall issue of Prairie Schooner. ing Ms. Mentor’s Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia. Her monthly ANDREA FREUD LOEWENSTEIN is working on a collection of advice column, “Ms. Mentor” appears on the Chronicle of Higher The contents of The Women’s Review of essays on ritualized language exchange and on a romance novel designed Education’s jobs site (www.chronicle.com/jobs—click on “Ms. Mentor”). Books are copyright © 2004. All rights to earn enough money to allow her to leave her tenured position at LORI TSANG is a Washington, DC-based writer whose poems have reserved; reprint by permission only. Medgar Evers college, CUNY, and devote herself to writing. been published in dISorient, The Drumming Between Us, Controlled Burn, VALERIE MINER is the author of 12 books, the latest of which are Amerasia Journal, and other publications. Her essays and reviews have short-story collections, Abundant Light (2004) and The Night Singers been published in the MultiCultural Review, AAAMPLITUDE, the (2004). She is a professor of English and creative writing at the Washington Post Book World, and other publications. University of Minnesota. EDITH M. VASQUEZ is an adjunct instructor of ethnic studies at ADRIAN OKTENBERG’s poetry collections include The Bosnia California State University Long Beach and the University of Elegies (1997) and Swimming with Dolphins (2002).