Product Description
Gloria E. Anzaldua, best known for her books Borderlands/La Frontera and This Bridge Called My Back, is one of the foremost feminist thinkers and activists of our time.As one of the first openly lesbian Chicana writers, Anzaldua has played a major role in redefining queer, female, and Chicano/a identities, and in developing inclusionary movements for social justice.
In this memoir-like collection, Anzaldua's powerful voice speaks clearly and passionately.She recounts her life, explains many aspects of her thought, and explores the intersections between her writings and postcolonial theory.Each selection deepens our understanding of an important cultural theorist's lifework.The interviews contain clear explanations of Anzaldua's original concept of the Borderlands and mestizaje and her subsequent revisions of these ideas; her use of the term New Tribalism as a disruptive category that redefines previous ethnocentric forms of nationalism; and what Anzaldua calls conocimientos-- alternate ways of knowing that synthesize reflection with action to create knowledge systems that challenge the status quo.
Highly personal and always rich in insight, these interviews, arranged and introduced by AnaLouise Keating, will not only serve as an accessible introduction to Anzaldua's groundbreaking body of work, but will also be of significant interest to those already well-versed in her thinking.For readers engaged in postcoloniality, feminist theory, ethnic studies, or queer identity, Interviews/Entrevistas will be a key contemporary document.Amazon.com Review
Among the most daring and influential of feminist theorists, Gloria E. Anzaldúa has long valued the interview process, considering it an intermediate form of writing--"part of communicating, which is part of writing, which is part of life"--as well as a means of self-discovery. As a result, she has granted at least a hundred interviews over the past 20 years, 10 of which, the earliest dating from 1982, are collected here by AnaLouise Keating. Lightly edited to avoid repetition, these interviews shed light on Anzaldúa's theories of convergence and the mestizaje, her spiritual views, the role of hallucinogenic drugs in her creativity, her literary influences, and the genesis of her various books, especially her best-known works, This Bridge Called My Back and Borderlands/La Frontera. In fact, since Anzaldúa's writings are so intensely personal, readers new to her may find that starting with the interviews makes as much sense as starting with her books. Although most of these pieces have been previously published, it is wonderful to have them in a single volume, and even better that Keating has gone back to the original tapes or transcripts in order to restore excised material--which almost always, incidentally, deals with Anzaldúa's rich and complicated spiritual life. Interviews/Entrevistas offers welcome insight into a remarkable writer's mind. --Regina Marler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Another great book from AK Press
In this memoir-like collection, Anzaldua explores the intersections between her life, her writings, and post-colonial theory. The interviews contain clear explanations of Anzaldua's concept of the 'Borderlands' and 'mestizaje'; her use of the term 'New Tribalism'; and what she calls 'conocimientos' - alternate ways of knowing that synthesize reflections with action to challenge the status quo.

a womb with a skew
I took this with me on vacation, after earlier reading "La Frontera", and I believe the two should be read together.Gloria is the anti-white guy writer, no, not that she is anti-white guy, but that she is barely hanging on the fringes of American mainstream society. In a class I took, some of the Caucausian men thought that Gloria should "get over" her angst and anger.I say, I think she has only begun.I'd like to see her write some fairy tales, since she has so much--I think it's called "magic realism"--in her poetry in La Frontera."Entrvistas"is like another window onto her writing mind, and the cool thing is that it's like an oral history--all interviews.A neat, and so non-traditional, way to write and communicate. ... Read more

Product Description
When Maria Flook's fourteen-year-old sister Karen disappeared from their suburban home, the author was changed forever. My Sister Life maps the story of two castaways from American suburbia who, while apart from each other, live mysteriously parallel lives.

With unrelenting realism and beguiling wit, Flook gives us an intimate account of her sister's life as a child prostitute, and of their coming of age in the 1960s--that surreal and wrenching moment of baby-boomer disenfranchisement, when the sexual revolution collided with the domestic fallout from the Vietnam War. From the ocean liners and Paris vacations of their refined upbringing to the gritty peepshows and adult theaters where they find jobs, the girls flee from a beautiful and tormented matriarch with secrets of her own.

Her missing sister becomes Flook's secret heroine--the sole example to follow in her journey into womanhood. The sisters live in trailer parks. They are faced with sexual assault, car thefts, and petty crimes with unpredictable men. Escaping from an abusive Vietnam vet, Karen takes her toddler to join her sister, who is herself raising a baby on her own; it is the first time they are under the same roof since their childhood. Their unorthodox reunion allows the sisters to forge a life-saving bond.

My Sister Life moves beyond biography or memoir to give us an astonishing vision of an American family--an authentic testimony to the defiant, undaunted faith between two sisters who connect after years apart. Amazon.com Review
Novelist Maria Flook lobs a psychic grenade with this mordantlycandid dual memoir. She gets inside her runaway sister's head togive a first-person account of life as a teenage prostitute anddepicts her own out-of-control adolescence with equally spookycontrol. No sexual or substance-abuse excess is too weird, nohumiliation too abject to escape the pinpoint precision of Flook'sblunt prose. Her ice-cold, scarily sexy mother and well-meaning,ineffectual father are penned just as memorably. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Like watching a train wreck
I bought this after reading Maria Flook's book about the murder of Christa Worthington.This book certainly kept my attention, but in a very disturbing way - couldn't sleep the whole night the first night that I read it, mainly due to the horror of the child prostitution depictions.As with the Worthington murder story, one has to wonder how much is fiction - Ms. Flook takes many liberties with interjecting the supposedly thoughts and feelings of her subjects.Again though, the book absolutely was a "must finish" - couldn't imagine these girls surviving their childhoods - I had to find out what happened.

Too Many Onion Layers
Without a doubt, Maria Flook is a very skilled writer. She writes very vividly, deftly uncovering every little aspect of the story, examining each and every possible layer of an onion, or two. This makes for an interesting read, however with so many onion layers being scrutinized, there becomes too many layers and the book becomes repetitive, full of too much information - some of it nonessential to the story, and by the end of the book, Flook loses focus. I find it ironic that Flook quotes her sister as telling her that she talks too much; she should allow others to paint their own picture. Her sister could not have said it any better. While I did enjoy reading this book, I felt as if I was given a very flat, one-sided view of Flook's life. In some parts, I felt that Flook should have allowed the readers to come to their own conclusions, rather thanforce feed us with her own interpretations.

This book depicts an ugly underside belly of life. It is not very pretty, but I think that not all writing has to be. The world can be a very ugly place. It's a story about Flook's life, starting at the age of twelve at the time she last saw her older sister step out of the house and disappear. The book starts out great, but by the last page, completely loses focus and the writing style changes, too. I get the feeling that Flook, after having written so much on her story, tires towards the end, and the style becomes much more abbreviated as she attempts to cram everything that she can and ends up essentially listing all the remaining events that happened. Maybe it would have been better to have written two books, instead ... as Mary Karr does with her autobiography in writing her two books, Liar's Club and Cherry. It's an OK read by a writer I believe is talented.

a good read
I admire people like Flook who can lay their souls on the line.
But because she's so dead-on honest, it's confounding why she doesn't seem to have the courage to go beneath and explore why what happened happened.
In the end, the greatest lesson I learned from this book is not to wear too much Gold Bond Body Powder at summer gatherings. Or, any gathering.

blame game
an interesting memoir that ultimately fails b/c it isn't honest. author seems to want to lay blame at somewhat ineffectual mother's feet for her and her sister's OWN worst decisions (dating men that beat them, prostitution, taking hard drugs, etc.) though the mother was smart enough to do neither.

it's well-written and an interesting psychological study of the author in a way she probably didn't intend. chock full of lots of father glorification and beating up of the mother and no taking responsibility for one's own behavior, if you like that sort of thing.

So bad I couldn't finish it!
This book got great reviews by professional book reviewers, but I really couldn't get past the first couple of chapters! Quite dull. ... Read more

Product Description

"How had the pair of elderly Jewish lesbians survived the Nazis?” Janet Malcolm asks at the beginning of this extraordinary work of literary biography and investigative journalism. The pair, of course, is Gertrude Stein, the modernist master “whose charm was as conspicuous as her fatness” and “thin, plain, tense, sour” Alice B. Toklas, the “worker bee” who ministered to Stein’s needs throughout their forty-year expatriate “marriage.” As Malcolm pursues the truth of the couple’s charmed life in a village in Vichy France, her subject becomes the larger question of biographical truth. “The instability of human knowledge is one of our few certainties,” she writes. 

The portrait of the legendary couple that emerges from this work is unexpectedly charged. The two world wars Stein and Toklas  lived through together are paralleled by the private war that went on between them. This war, as Malcolm learned, sometimes flared into bitter combat.

Two Lives is also a work of literary criticism. “Even the most hermetic of [Stein’s] writings are works of submerged autobiography,” Malcolm writes. “The key of  'I' will not unlock the door to their meaning—you need a crowbar for that—but will sometimes admit you to a kind of anteroom of suggestion.” Whether unpacking the accessible Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, in which Stein “solves the koan of autobiography,” or wrestling with The Making of Americans, a masterwork of “magisterial disorder,” Malcolm is stunningly perceptive.

Praise for the author:

“[Janet Malcolm] is among the most intellectually provocative of authors . . .able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight.”—David Lehman, Boston Globe

“Not since Virginia Woolf has anyone thought so trenchantly about the strange art of biography.”—Christopher Benfey

Customer Reviews (11)

A great opportunity to learn more about two great lesbians
At the December 2008 meeting of the NYC LGBT Center book discussion group, the consensus was that almost everyone liked "Two Lives" and appreciated learning more about Gertrude and Alice.

There were some reservations expressed that book was not a conventional biography, but more like a collection of "New Yorker" stories, which is where much of the book was originally published. There was some criticism that some of the writing appeared shallow. The biggest surprise for the group was finding out that both Stein and Toklas managed to stay in occupied France during World War II without coming under scrutiny by the Germans. There was some intense discussion as to whether Gertrude Stein even really knew what was happening to Jews in France or whether she was simply in a state of denial.

Several attendees were fascinated by the "expatriate" life that both women lead in Paris in the 1920's and 1930's and the lively salons they held which attracted so many artists and other famous people. There was some speculation as to what motivated people to come to these, making them so attractive. It was suggested that perhaps aside from the sparkling conversation and good food, the opportunity to rub shoulders with famous people was irresistible.

Additionally, a few felt that Stein was a real self-promoter who used people, discarding them when they had no more use for her. Others pointed out that many artists--notably Picasso, who was a member of Stein's circle--were also self-promoters and had to be in order to be successful.Several felt sorry for Alice who clearly was the person who served Gertrude, kept house, cooked for her, assisted with her writing and for all practical purposes was her servant. It was agreed that Alice was not well-served by Gertrude's will, practically forcing into penury at the end of her life.

More interestingly, the group was fascinated to learn of the sex life between the two ladies, specifically how Gertrude was adept in giving "cows" to Alice.

Janet Malcolm, TWO LIVES: GERTRUDE AND ALICE
Dianne Hunter's Review
This tabloid-fodder, skeptical reportage borders on despicable. Part I recycles a NEW YORKER essay on Stein & Toklas getting on with apparent imperturbability in Nazi France, and their friendship with B. Fay, whom Toklas later helped to escape from prison. Part II examines THE MAKING OF AMERICANS, retails gossipy findings by and about Stein scholars Katz, Dydo, Rice, Burns et al., and discusses treacherous researchers, narrative theft, and Malcolm's struggle with her ignorance of Stein. Malcolm zaps Stein for publicizing her cheerfulness, genius and confidence but not her Jewishness, depression or lesbianism. Part III starts by mollifying the book's previous malice, but then turns its baleful gaze on Toklas as a poor relation, and ends by mocking her Roman Catholicism. This (2007) quasi-biographical search for dirt and lies centers on questions about what it means to be Jewish and about what on earth could have made Stein, a fat Jewish lesbian, lovable. (Malcolm's answer: Stein was a youngest sibling).

I Actually Want to Read Gertrude Stein Now (Though I Probably Won't)
Why would I read a book on Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, two writers (well, probably one) I have sedulously avoided reading in the past? Well, first off, the book was on sale -it was half price, more or less- at the Strand Book Store ("Eight miles of Books") in New York City and I went down to the Strand to replenish my book larder.(That's not all I picked up. I left the Strand with a first rate experimental novel by a guy I'd never read before at all -David Markson's This Is a Novel; a novel I hadn't read by Joyce Carol Oates, The Tattooed Girl; David Cesarini's Becoming Eichmann; Paul Fussell's latest reflection on the experience of soldiering in World War II, The Boy's Crusade; a new history of the Trojan War by Barry Schwartz; Philip Roth's Everyman; and a novel written almost exclusively in the first person plural (that means "we") about office life, Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End.) Second, while I don't know much about Stein, I do know she's some kind of genius of the English language. ("Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose," she wrote. It works for me. Reading that actually makes me see something about roses I hadn't seen before.)(And I like her characterization of Oakland, California, the town where she grew up: "There's no there there." That's really, really cool.)Third, the few times I tried to read Stein I came up with a big Goose Egg, but I know she's a major writer, though a particularly thorny one, of the modernist variety, a Picasso of prose, so to speak. Fourth, I read the first few sentences of Malcolm's lively study of Stein and I was ... hooked.: "When I read The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book for the first time, Eisenhower was in the white House and Liz Taylor had taken Eddie Fisher away from Debbie Reynolds. The book, published in 1954, was given to me by a fellow member of a group of pretentious young persons I ran around with, who had nothing but amused contempt for middlebrow American culture, and whose revolt against the conformity of the time largely took the form of patronizing a furniture store called Design Research and of writing mannered letters to each other modeled on the mannered letters of certain famous literary homosexuals, then not known as such. The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book fit right in with our program of callow preciousness; we loved its waspishly magisterial tone, its hauteur and malice....."What emerges from this engaging study is a picture of complicated but mutually beneficial relationship. Gertrude dearly decided that she was a genius, a nonpareil, and that, ergo, everyone around her should cater to her needs. "It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing," she reported in Everybody's Autobiography. Everyone loved Gertrude but very few people really cared for Alice but it was Alice's careful, jealous, fussy caring for Gertrude that made it possible for Gertrude to exercise her genius --which, in Malcolm's eyes, was considerable, though exceedingly difficult of access. Horribly difficult of access, one might say. Malcolm doesn't shortchange the barriers in the way of reading and appreciating Stein's long, indulgent but at the same time terribly revolutionary prose wanderings. There are many pleasures to this short but acute study: Malcolm traces the path of Steinian criticism and studies, she has good things to say about Gertrude and Alice's life in Vichy France during World War II, seemingly oblivious to the horrors going on around them. She has telling things to say about the blank spots in Gertrude's perception of the world (where did she stand on the Jewish question? Why was one of her closest confidants in the later years of the war a vicious anti-Semite?)She understands and accepts Stein's "heartlessness" to ordinary people's suffering. ("But she is not writing [about their lives]; she is writing a book about how amusing life around Gertrude Stein is. The heartlessness is essential to the amusement...") This is a fine book, discerning and amusing, and it ultimately makes you feel better about the grotesque near-monster that was Gertrude Stein and her equally grotesque lover and minder Alice B. Toklas.

the author inserts herself
This short book rounds out a few pieces of the Gertrude/Alice relationship. I liked the way she gives a flavor of Stein's first book, relieving me of any desire to read it myself. Malcolm is a good writer and she touches on subjects relating to her own drama being sued for fabricating quotations and she inserts her own biases as in, "Wills are uncanny and electric documents. They lie dormant for years, and then spring to life when their author dies, as if death were rain. Their effect on those they enrich or disappoint is never negligible, and sometimes unexpectedly charged. They thrust living and dead into a final fierce clasp of love or hatred. But they are not written in stone--for all their granite legal language--and they can be bent to subvert the wishes of the writer. Such was the case with Stein's will."

Smarty pants!
Interesting, but I fear the author seems to set out to defend an agenda rather than seeking to a rational conclusion from the evidence at hand. She also falls prey to a need to appear very clever which she may well be. Is she more clever than profound? ... Read more

Product Description
Covering all Smith's major poetry (Elegiac Sonnets, The Emigrants and Beachy Head), as well as the prose apparatus to the poetry (prefaces, dedications, and footnotes), this book reads her work in light of her self-representations as a poet, mother, and social critic, and uncovers a hitherto-unexamined coherence in both content and style. Smith is shown to be both an innovator and a significant figure in understanding Romantic conceptions of gender.
... Read more

Product Description
Born in 1862 to a prosperous, cultivated family, Ada Leverson contributed humourous articles to "Punch" magazine and attracted the attention of Oscar Wilde. He became a firm friend and in 1985 was sheltered by the Leversons during his trial. Aubrey Beardsley, Walter Sickert, John Singer Sargent, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Max Beerbohm all became habitues of Ada Leverson's salon, at the heart of fashionable nineties society. Ada Leverson published two stories in the Yellow Book in 1895 and 1896 but it was not until 1905, when her unhappy marriage collapsed, that she began to write the six comedies of manners which established her reputation among an ever-growing circle of admirers. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Tracing the inner-depths of the short fiction of Kate Chopin, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty, Beyond and Alone addresses the common theme of isolation in their works and the authors' treatment of universal human and social problems. ... Read more

Product Description
In this Readers' Guide, Stuart Hutchinson analyzes the most significant writings on The House of Mirth(1905), The Custom of the Country(1913) and The Age of Innocence(1920). Beginning with Wharton's own comments on the novels, he moves on to the contemporary responses of Henry James and challenging reviews such as Katherine Mansfield's, before turning to stimulating critical writing from later perspectives. Geoffrey Walton, Blake Nevius, and R. W. B. Lewis feature among others, followed by feminist insights from Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Elizabeth Ammons, and Elaine Showalter. This Guide is an essential resource for understanding the changing responses to Wharton's work.
... Read more

Product Description
Argues that contemporary female Gothic novels of death breathe new life into feminist debates about victimization, essentialism, agency, and the body. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Resource and Bibliography
I bought this book to help me out with a paper I was writing on Gothic Literature in a feminist context. This book was exactly what I was looking for and pointed me towards many other authors to look into that I had not heard of before. The overall focus of the book is fascinating if you're into Gothic novels and especially the complex way females are depicted and used within them. ... Read more

Product Description

From catfishing as a young girl in the lazy, red clay waters of the South to battling marlin in the Caribbean, Lorian Hemingway has had a passion for fishing all her life. It was a passion that would sustain her even as the burden of a broken family and her own alcoholism threatened to consume her. Walk on Water is her poignant and powerful memoir about loss, recovery, coping with the family you are born into, and making a family of your own. But above all it is an homage to fishing -- its ability to bind people, to challenge, and ultimately, to heal.

"People pair up to fish as they do in life...they keep fishing together because no one else quite comprehends the degree of their obsession," Hemingway writes, and from the beginning, her memories of fishing are inextricably linked with the relationships that have shaped her life. There is Catfish, a woman she idolized as a child, who gave her early insights on fishing ("You wants fish too bad. They knows it."); Hemingway's estranged father, with whom she tries to connect during a Herningwayesque marlin hunt in the Caribbean; her big-hearted great-uncle Les, with whom she goes barracuda fishing off Bimini in a pirated sailboat, himself tragically haunted by the family legacy; and her larger-than-life aunt Freda, who once saved her from a deadly water snake with a bow and arrow.

But in the colorful cast of characters there is none more appealing than Hemingway herself -- gifted with a dry wit, a keen eye for life's absurdities, and a fierce resilience that comes from being a survivor. She writes passionately about herself and her effort to come to terms with her family legacy, especially with regard to fishing -- whether it's a harrowing encounter in the dark with a hammerhead shark, an inauspicious TV debut on a fly-fishing show, or the quiet pleasures of fishing with her daughter.

By turns moving, raw, wry, and hilarious, Walk on Water is a stirring memoir by a woman who, like her quarry, is full of fight and life.Amazon.com Review
Readers of Lorian Hemingway's memoir about salvation throughfishing will be let in on a secret known to anglers through the ages:the act of fishing is a physical embodiment of hope--and for some itis a form of recovery. "I take fish personally," writesHemingway in the opening chapter of Walk on Water, a seeminglycoy statement that is proved repeatedly in these pages. A juvenilebass rescued from a pothole shrinking in the hot sun--a fish saved inthe innocence of childhood--is her first piscine connection, followedby the care of a southern-fried cook named Catfish.But innocencefades, and it is not until many years later--after an adolescenceblurred by alcohol, dope, and larceny--that the author rediscovers theredemptive qualities of fishing. Now living in the opposite corner ofthe country, she learns to stalk the Northwest's coldwater fish whileraising a daughter and partaking of the natural world's rejuvenatinglife cycle: "I have fished with my daughter on a stretch of theAlsea River in Oregon that runs through vine maple forest where moondollar beams of light spot the forest floor, the pattern shifting withthe wind. In autumn the leaves bleed scarlet and the air is tintedpink with the refraction of all that red. High in the trees pileatedwoodpeckers knock a beat and red-tailed hawks glide above thecanopy." The end of the line, it turns out, is alive withpossibility. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Wit, Charm, and Guile
This is a penetrating story written gracefully and honestly by a courageous woman. Its compelling and essential messages are delivered with exquisite subtlety, so that our appreciation for the earth, for the people in our lives who lift us, for the waters that cleanse and renew us, and ultimately, for ourselves, is heightened and sharpened by each flowing page. What's more, Hemingway's Southern wit, charm, and guile make this book a heck of a lot of fun to read.

the best I've read all year!
WOW! I didn't buy this book expecting much. Yes, I knew it was written bythe granddaughter of the Ernest Hemingway and yes, I know it was about'fishing'....but I really had no idea. Really..no idea how this woman'swords would grab me. Knowing that she lives in the same city where I work,I'm hoping to one day stumble across her and just tell her how much impactthis book had on me. A co-worker just went through alcohol de-tox and thisbook gave me some vague notion of what he went through. Thanks for that!I'm not a fisherwoman....but I love fish and I work with dead fish partsdaily as a science-lady, and this book is full of fish-wisdom, honesty andbeautiful, true words. This book is full of all that. Humor, honesty andlove. Again, WOW!

a powerful graceful novel/full of life
Forget all that you've read about redemption and the bad girl made good, if you like to live in the real world and to fish, this book is for you. Not to mention that it's pretty damn well written to boot. Good Stuff!

A beautifully written life story of hope and redempemtion
For anyone who has ever witnessed a loved one do the slow dance with alcoholism, Lorian Hemingway's memoir is waiting for you. Yet another lesson that life is best described with four letter words: love, hate, hope and dirt. I laughed out loud at her hilarious drug hazed antics and cringed as she began her long drawn out fall. Her honesty is astounding: no regrets, no finger pointing, no pass off of responsibility of her actions. Thank you, Lorian, for this memorable book.

This is a great survivor story
The book was recommended to me by a friend and I thought it would be a great lazy day reading book.Was I wrong!Once I started, I couldn't put it down.The book grabs your soul from the beginning and by the end, you can't believe it's over.It iis truly the ultimate in survivor stories and it proves the adage.."What does not kill you, will make you stronger."Obviously, the author is (at the end) a stronger, resiliant woman . ... Read more

Product Description
Two of Jane Austen’s brother served in Nelson’s navy and later became admirals. Francis Austen, on board the Canopus, narrowly missed the battle of Trafalgar; Charles Austen in Endymion captured numerous small prizes. It is not surprising that that the Austen family, including Jane, took a deep personal interest in naval affairs. Apart from the church, the navy was the profession which she knew and admired most. Her novels reflected this: Mansfield Park includes a portrait of life in Portsmouth, the estimable midshipman William Price and the less attractive Admiral Crawford; Persuasion presents her most extended account of naval officers and attitudes, from the redoubtable Admiral Croft to Captain Wentworth himself. Jane Austen and the Navy demonstrates clearly the importance of the navy both in Jane Austen’s life and her novels.

"She was convinced of sailors having more worth and warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to live, and they only deserved to be respected and loved!"--Jane Austen, Persuasion
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very informative
This book is well worth reading, but only if you're immersed in Austen lore. I never would have guessed that someone (Francis Austen) who ended up as the top admiral in the British Navy would have experienced so much disappointment in his career. Also, Jane Austen's father's letter to his sons when they entered the navy is very valuable and the advice in it could be used by lots of people. ... Read more

Product Description
The Little Locksmith, Katharine Butler Hathaway's luminous memoir of disability, faith, and transformation, is a critically acclaimed but largely forgotten literary classic brought back into print for the first time in thirty years. The Little Locksmith begins in 1895 when a specialist straps five-year-old Katharine, then suffering from spinal tuberculosis, to a board with halters and pulleys in a failed attempt to prevent her being a "hunchback." Her mother says that she should be thankful that her parents are able to have her cared for by a famous surgeon; otherwise, she would grow up to be like the "little locksmith," who does jobs at their home; he has a "strange, awful peak in his back." Forced to endure "a horizontal life of night and day," Katharine remains immobile until age fifteen, only to find that she, too, has a hunched back and is "no larger than a ten-year-old child." The Little Locksmith charts Katharine's struggle to transcend physical limitations and embrace her life, her body and herself in the face of debilitating bouts of frustration and shame. Her spirit and courage prevail, and she succeeds in expanding her world far beyond the boundaries prescribed by her family and society: she attends Radcliffe College, forms deep friendships, begins to write, and in 1921, purchases a house of her own in Castine, Maine. There she creates her home, room by room, fashioning it as a space for guests, lovers, and artists. The Little Locksmith stands as a testimony to Katharine's aspirations and desires-for independence, for love, and for the pursuit of her art.

"We tend to forget nowadays that there is more than one variety of hero (and heroine). Katharine Butler Hathaway, who died last Christmas Eve, was the kind of heroine whose deeds are rarely chronicled. They were not spectacular and no medal would have been appropriate for her. All she did was to take a life which fate had cast in the mold of a frightful tragedy and redesign it into a quiet, modest work of art. The life was her own.

"When Katharine Butler was five, she fell victim to spinal tuberculosis. For ten years she was strapped to a board (that means one hundred and twenty months, an infinity of days and hours and minutes) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Written from the heart
Katharine Butler Hathaway suffered from a deformity of the spine that caused her to be of small stature and in almost constant pain.She was also a writer.In The Little Locksmith, one of my favorite books about writing, she chronicles her writing life, which for her equals her spiritual life.In the first half of the 20th century, she made the radical choice to live alone, and to write.Her choice was incomprehensible to her beloved family, and perhaps The Little Locksmith is an explanation of sorts.It reads like a revelation.This book helped me to find my soul as a writer.It's also a good recommendation for family members who just don't get it.

Timeless
This book has been sitting around on my shelf since I was a child.I thought it was a child's book when I was young, but couldn't read it.I just pulled it off the shelf again, and have discovered what will become one of my favorite books about hope, determination, the power of positive thinking, and art - its struggles, its blisses, its importance.It is a must read for any writer, or for that matter, any artist who struggles with stealing time to do their art without feeling somehow guilty, or fearful, or terribly isolated.It is about transcendance despite ridiculous odds.It is an amazing, amazing book.I'm so glad I got around to it.

A gem
This book is enchanting, wonderful, and beyond description, except to say it is a testament to the human spirit.

If you read this and loved it, also look at "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," by Jean-Dominique Bauby. If you can't imagine living on your back for ten years, try imagining writing a book using only the ability to blink one eye, to dictate letter by letter. Tis book is another testament to the human spirit.

amazing
This book is amazing, I am 15 and I read it, my mother at 39 read it, my grandma read it and my younger sister at 13 read it. Everyone takes away some different, but something wonderful from this book.It is absolutely indescribable, you have to read it; right now, order it, read it, it will change your outlook on life.

Don't Miss This Treasure
This is a beautiful book on so many levels.The author's voice, the author's spirit, the author's technique of storytelling are awe inspiring.If you have been led to this page, take it as a sign and order this book, reading it is an experience and I can't wait to read it again.If you are looking for a gift to give someone else then this is it, but read it first yourself so that you can trully share it. ... Read more

Product Description
In this first book-length biography of Mercedes de Acosta, theater historian Robert A. Schanke adroitly mines lost archival materials and mixes in his own interviews with de Acosta’s intimates to correct established myths and at last construct an accurate, detailed, and vibrant portrait of the flamboyantly uninhibited early-twentieth-century author, poet, and playwright.

Born to wealthy Spanish immigrants, Mercedes de Acosta (1893–1968) lived in opulence and traveled in the same social circles as the Astors and Vanderbilts. Introduced to the New York theater scene at an early age, her dual loves of performance and of women informed every aspect of her life thereafter. Alice B. Toklas’s observation, "Say what you will about Mercedes, she’s had the most important women in the twentieth century," was well justified, as her romantic conquests included such internationally renowned beauties as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Isadora Duncan, and Eva Le Gallienne as well as Alla Nazimova, Tamara Karsavina, Pola Negri, and Ona Munson.

More than a record of her personal life and infamous romances, this account offers the first analysis of the complete oeuvre of de Acosta’s literary works, including three volumes of poetry, two novels, two film scripts, and a dozen plays. Although only two of her plays were ever published during her lifetime, four of them were produced, featuring such stage luminaries as John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, and Eva Le Gallienne. Critics praised her first volume of poetry, Moods, in 1919 and predicted her rise to literary fame, but the love of other women that fueled her writing also limited her opportunities to fulfill this destiny. Failing to achieve any lasting fame, she died in relative poverty at the age of seventy-five. De Acosta lived her desires publicly with verve and vigor at a time when few others would dare, and for that, she paid the price of marginalized obscurity. Until now. With "That Furious Lesbian" Schanke at last establishes Mercedes de Acosta’s rightful place as a pioneer—and indeed a champion—in the early struggle for lesbian rights in this country. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Author can't bring to life this fascinating woman
There is lots of interesting information in this biography of a somewhat forgotten woman, but it reads more like a dissertation than an engrossing story. The challenge for a biographer is to bring his or her subject to life, and unfortunately the facts are not enlivened in this volume.

Much Needed Bio on a Woman Many Loved Yet EvenMore Forgot
This is an interesting account of her life.I found that there is even more information at the author's website - take a look and you'll learn more about this woman...There is a paperback coming out soon so check out the site and come back to get the paperback!

www.mercedesdeacosta.com

Silk purse vs. sow's ear
Schanke's previous book on the stage actress Eva Le Gallienne was a knockout, and this one suffers in comparison.Perhaps the character of Mercedes was just too hard to pin down, and this may not be Schanke's fault.Acosta's work seems slight and dated, and no amount of cutting and pasting is going to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.This leaves her as a curiosity, a woman who must have been something in her prime, when so many gorgeous women succumbed to her; and then as a victim of what we would now call "erotomania," desperately clinging to the hope that someday Garbo would smile on her again, even though she must have known that "outing" Garbo in her insipid memoir "Here Lies the Heart" (which Le Gallienne heatedly called, "The Heart Lies and Lies and Lies") wasn't the way to curry favor with such a private individual.The last chapters of the book are pathetic in extremis, it's almost hard to believe Mercedes stayed alive from week to week she was so poor and abject, having no money of her own and totally dependent on charity from others.She was like Job in every way except, of course, genitally.But then again Job was probably pretty annoying too.Schanke does a fine job putting together the pieces of a fabulist's life, jigsaw pieces from many different puzzles.

Overdue but uninspired
De Acosta has long needed an biography since her own autobiography "Here Lies the Heart" often feels fictional. While Schanke gets the facts and corrects some of the autobiography's inaccuracies, he does not ever convince one that this was a story worth telling. The vitality and outragousness of her own book makes de Acosta a compelling figure, but the recitation of facts in this one does not.

This book has a hard task: telling the life story of a mediocre writer best known for who she had sex with. And while the book does not make a strong case for de Acosta being worth the attention, it is quite facinating for anyone interested in gay history. In addition, the figures arround Mercedes (such as her sister, Garbo, Poppy Kirk) emerge as intriguing in a way that de Acosta does not.

Jehanne d'Arc and Mercedes: Two Saints in one Act.
I guess it took the Roman Church 500 years to rehabilitate, integrate, and neutralize a troubling voice from the past. Mercedes de Acosta had no such qualms and reincarnated Jehanne in the person of Eva le Gallienne in the 1925 production of Jehanne d'Arc.

Robert Schake's " That Furious Lesbian": The Story of Mercedes Acosta is a sustained effort to peel away the recurring labels that obliterate the magnificent other that was Mercedes.

Schanke's re-creative efforts, stemming in large part from Mercedes' poverty driven sale of her "Aspern Letters" to the Rosenbach Library, are well worth the attention of those still capable of amazement before those bolides which burst through Victorian conventions into a new century. ... Read more

Product Description
Ten years ago, In a riveting story of courage and hope, Peg Kehret wrote of months spent in a hospital when she was twelve, first struggling to survive a severe case of polio, then slowly learning to walk again. The book deeply touched readers of all ages and received many awards and honors. This anniversary edition includes an updated and extended epilogue about the author's experiences since the original publication. It also includes twelve pages of new photos and a lengthy section about polio, past and present.

This 10th Anniversary Edition will inspire a whole new generation of readers. Those readers who already love it will find themselves reaching for it one more time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (79)

Great book
I'm a Jr High special education teacher & I purchased this book to see if I wanted to use it with my class.I thought it was a great book and an easy read & I will definitely use it with my class this year. Of course after I purchased it here (for about $4 w/shipping) I found it in the book warehouse near me for $1, but $4 is still a good deal :)

Small Steps:The Year I Got Polio
This was an excellent book that very accurately described what children experienced when they contracted polio in the 1940's and 1950's.It was well written to be read quickly by an older child or by an adult to any child or just for their own education.Peg Kehret's memories will help as a base in any discussion of polio; what happens, how it was treated and in some cases overcome, and what health problems reoccur many years later.

Kid Review: Best Book Ever!
I really liked this book because it told you what it meant to have polio.Peg Khert told you in her own words what it was like to be a child with polio.She writes how deadly and dangerous polio was in 1949.It was heartfelt and she made friends along her hard journey.I think that kids and adults should read this book.

Great book for middle schoolers and older!
I'm a middle school science teacher. We study viruses in 8th grade. We read this book aloud each year. Peg Kehret is a children's author who had polio when she was a kid. She tells the story well giving the kids an insight into the disease and it's place in history as well.The 8th graders really are engaged listeners when we read it. Parents who have read it tell me they enjoyed it and learned from it, too. I recommend it highly.

Great book
My son will read this in school this year in 6th grade, so I read it when we purchased it.I could not put it down.It was a great book.I will look for more by this author!

I am also impressed by our school system - this story will give our 6th graders perspective on what real 'problems' are - not just the trivial things preteens and teens are usually concerned about. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description

Product Description
American Domesticity considers representations of domesticity and domestic labor over the last two centuries in didactic, cinematic, and feminist texts, tracing key moments in the construction of an idea whose political power and effectivity in our national imagination cannot be overestimated--that of normative domestic femininity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

19th Century Film Studies!
This book examines the discourse on domestic labor across the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on how-to manuals, classical Hollywood films, and more recent avant-garde works.The author provides an engaging,sophisticated and well-written history of how we have understood (or, moreaccurately, obscured) domestic labor as a key component of Americannational identity.By taking the 19th century into account, the authorprovides one of the more insightful analyses of American film melodrama andwomen's cinema.This book is crucial for anyone wanting to understand therole of gender in American modern culture and cinema. ... Read more