“Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus” by Elaine Pagels
“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.” So wrote David Hume in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). A founder of empiricism, Hume argued that miracles are extremely unlikely since, by definition, they subvert our sensory understanding of the world. “It is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; […]
“The Mourner’s Bestiary” by Eiren Caffall
Like Eiren Caffall, I have spent many hours in the Long Island Sound. On its beaches I have watched tiny barnacles feed in the tide, ospreys hunt for fish, horseshoe crabs scuttle like living fossils in the surf. And then there were the jellyfish. They appeared one day out of nowhere. A bloom that filled […]
“Matriarchal Societies of the Past and the Rise of Patriarchy: West Asia and Europe” by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
It’s hard to think of another topic on which educated people misspeak so glibly as the naturalness of patriarchy. Claims like “most societies have been male-dominated” are tossed out to right and left with only a murmur of thought: Maybe men habitually rule through physical strength, or because women are busy with babies? And in […]
“Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur: From Film Noir to the Director’s Chair” by Alexandra Seros
The Trouble with Angels (1966), a playful comedy about mischievous girls at a Catholic boarding school, was a beloved film in my family. My grandmother took her daughters to see it in the 1960s, and it became one of my mother’s favorites, rivaled only by Grease (1978). Growing up as she did in a large […]
“Sad Tiger” by Neige Sinno, translated by Natasha Lehrer
“Consent” by Vanessa Springora, translated by Natasha Lehrer
“You Won’t Get Free of It” by Rachel Aviv
“Alice Munro’s Retreat” by Anne Enright
“My stepfather sexually abused me when I was a child. My mother, Alice Munro, chose to stay with him” by Andrea Robin Skinner
Voicing experiences of childhood sexual abuse counteracts the techniques perpetrators use to sustain their patterns of criminal abuse; namely, silencing the victim and controlling the narrative about what happened. Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, recently published in an English translation by Natasha Lehrer, is an intelligent hybrid of survivor memoir and literary criticism. A sensation […]
“The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir” by Edmund White
The other day, I received a press release sent by a publisher. He was hoping to interest me in a forthcoming memoir. It was the story of a man, driving across the country, in search of information about his father’s life. Something along these lines. A man and his father. Two men and their whatever. […]
“Spent: A Comic Novel” By Alison Bechdel
Spent,the new comic novel by Alison Bechdel,is a study in what happens when a doom spiral develops centrifugal force. The book is set in 2021, mid-Covid, both post- and pre-Trump. A fictionalized version of the author, Alison, and her wife, Holly, run a pygmy goat sanctuary on their Vermont farm. While Holly goes viral for […]
A Consideration of “Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel” by Loretta Ross
“These days, when people sling words of criticism like ‘performative’ or ‘saviorism,’ I hear scornful dismissal, not sophistication. Allies can be ‘proven,’ ‘potential,’ or ‘problematic,’” Loretta J. Ross writes, but importantly “they are allies.” In Calling In, her sixth book, Rossmixes memoir with advice for dealing with conflict. The advice centers on why and how […]
“Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation” By Sophie Lewis
Like any broad social movement, feminism contains many currents. You can take one of two approaches to that. The first would say we’re all in it together against the patriarchy so differences within the movement have to be subordinated to unity against a common foe. The other approach would acknowledge that we’re not all in […]
“Us Fools” by Nora Lange & “Cruddy” by Lynda Barry
One of the formative literary undertakings of my life was reading Lynda Barry’s Cruddy at sixteen. My mother bought it from a Goodwill, delighted by the striking ugliness of the cover, and then promptly abandoned it, telling me one morning at breakfast, “Just the most terrible situation you can imagine—that’s what this book is about.” […]