Heroines
Back of the Book
On the last day of December, 2009 Kate Zambreno began a blog called Frances Farmer Is My Sister, arising from her obsession with the female modernists and her recent transplantation to Akron, Ohio, where her husband held a university job. Widely reposted, Zambreno's blog became an outlet for her highly informed and passionate rants about the fates of the modernist “wives and mistresses.” In her blog entries, Zambreno reclaimed the traditionally pathologized biographies of Vivienne Eliot, Jane Bowles, Jean Rhys, and Zelda Fitzgerald: writers and artists themselves who served as male writers' muses only to end their lives silenced, erased, and institutionalized. Over the course of two years, Frances Farmer Is My Sister helped create a community where today's “toxic girls” could devise a new feminist discourse, writing in the margins and developing an alternative canon.In Heroines, Zambreno extends the polemic begun on her blog into a dazzling, original work of literary scholarship. Combing theories that have dictated what literature should be and who is allowed to write it—from T. S. Eliot's New Criticism to the writings of such mid-century intellectuals as Elizabeth Hardwick and Mary McCarthy to the occasional “girl-on-girl crime” of the Second Wave of feminism—she traces the genesis of a cultural template that consistently exiles female experience to the realm of the “minor,” and diagnoses women for transgressing social bounds. “ANXIETY: When she experiences it, it's pathological,” writes Zambreno. “When he does, it's existential.” By advancing the Girl-As-Philosopher, Zambreno reinvents feminism for her generation while providing a model for a newly subjectivized criticism.
We Love It Because
Zambreno’s sharpness is backed up by her prolific research into her subjects and supporting the validity of her claims is more important to her than making a point to be subversive, that much is clear from the content of Heroines, where the author engages with an aspect of literary womanhood bigger than herself. Her wit, however, surfaces often to create a nonfiction experience that is both invigorating and informative.
Memorable Passage
I am beginning to realize that taking the self out of our essays is a form of repression. Taking the self out feels like obeying a gag order—pretending an objectivity where there is nothing objective about the experience of confronting and engaging with and swooning over literature.
About the Author
Kate Zambreno is a contemporary American writer and essayist celebrated for her fearless exploration of the intersections between literature, feminism, and personal narrative. Born in 1977, Zambreno's work, including Heroines and Green Girl, intricately weaves together memoir, criticism, and fiction, challenging genre boundaries and offering a unique perspective on the female experience. Her writing is marked by a raw vulnerability and a keen intellect, delving into themes of identity, motherhood, and the challenges faced by women in the literary world. Zambreno's commitment to dismantling traditional structures and her unapologetic examination of the self have garnered widespread acclaim. She is worth knowing for her contribution to the evolving landscape of contemporary literature, where her voice stands as a vital force challenging norms and expanding the possibilities of personal and collective storytelling.
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