American Writers (One Hundred Pages at a Time)

In THE GROVES OF ACADEME Mary McCarthy studies the insane world at a small liberal college. Like all of the other groups McCarthy studies, the whole is certainly less than the sum of its parts.

Onto the second Mary McCarthy novel in this episode. THE OASIS is about an intentional community of crazy intellectuals doing crazy, petty, and stupid stuff. Sounds like a university.

What a great novel! I finish my thoughts on Mary McCarthy's debut novel THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS in this episode. These chapters look at American Trotskyism and the psychological confessional.

We begin a new series looking into the early works of the brilliant Mary McCarthy. In this episode we begin with THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS, a novel of interconnected stories dealing with the contradictions in the life of a modern American woman.

This is the finale episode covering the stories in THE FUTURE IS FEMALE written since 1963. One of the highlights of this section is Ursula K Le Guin's "Nine Lives" about cloning and individualism. Overall a nice anthology. Next up, Mary McCarthy.

This episode continues my review of the THE FUTURE IS FEMALE anthology. I look at stories from the 1960s. Women writers in during the "New Wave" era looked at themes of gender, population, family, and sexuality with a bit more intensity.

A few more stories from THE FUTURE IS FEMALE anthology. These are stories from the mid-1950s, including Zenna Henderson's "Ararat" and Alice Jones' "Created He Them" (a forerunner of A HANDMAID'S TALE)

This episode looks at three stories from THE FUTURE IS FEMALE edited by Lisa Yaszek. These stories cover the years 1945 to 1951 and include Wilmar Shiras' "In Hiding".

In this episode I look at five stories collected in THE FUTURE IS FEMALE edited by Lisa Yaszek. Clare Winger Harris, "The Miracle of the Lily" Leslie F. Stone, "The Conquest of Gola" C. L. Moore, "The Black God's Kiss" Lesli Perri, "Space Episode" Judith Merril, "That Only a Mother"

Willa Cather wrote SAPPHIRA AND THE SLAVE GIRL in 1940. This novel takes us back to pre-Civil War Virginia and looks at the sexual politics in a slave-owning household. Perhaps it is not her best novel, but it certainly gets the sexual tension in such households correct.