Did you know there may have been a female Pope in the 800’s? According to Pope Joan, which is based on historical clues, such a person could have existed. Donna Woolfolk Cross brings Pope John (or Joan) to life, from her birth to her death, and constructs plausible and engaging scenarios to explain how Joan became educated and was able to hide her gender until she reached the pinnacle of power in medieval Christianity. Joan was born in Ingelheim, which…
Lynne Kutsukake’s novel The Translation of Love explores the American occupation of Japan after World War II. I reviewed it last year, and as I was reading this engaging novel, I had some questions for the author. I’m so pleased that she agreed to be interviewed. You mention that the book was inspired by letters from Japanese people to General MacArthur. How did a whole novel grow out of a book of letters? Lynne: I was fascinated that Japanese people…
The title of this short novel could be read in multiple ways: “property” refers to the slave, Sarah, owned by the main character, a white woman named Manon. It could also refer to Manon herself, who is in a way the “property” of her husband. When Manon inherits her mother’s house, it is by law her husband’s property, since she “belongs” to him. Property was first published in 2003 and won the Orange Prize for Fiction by a female author…
The unnamed narrator of The Blood of Flowers is a young woman of 17th century Iran who has fallen on hard times. The book begins with the narrator and her mother huddled in old clothes in a cold, leaking shelter, speaking in whispers to avoid disturbing others sleeping nearby. But the narrator reveals that she wasn’t always in such dire straits: “Only a few months before I had worn a thick velvet robe patterned with red roses, with silk trousers…
February is African-American History Month. The following historical novels by and about African-American women are ones that I have read and recommend. Please feel free to leave a comment with your recommended historical novels by and about African-American women. (By the way, the photo above, taken by Thomas Askew, shows an unidentified African American woman, and is part of the image collection at the Library of Congress.) Kindred, by Octavia Butler In this time-travel novel, a modern-day African-American woman is…
I am so excited to present this interview with Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture and many other novels (including her latest, Mercury.) I reviewed Eva Moves the Furniture in an earlier post, and I wanted to ask Margot how she came to write the novel, which encompasses so much: a fascinating ghost story, a tender mother-daughter novel, and the chronicle of a woman discovering who she is. You mention on your web site that this novel took…
Jeannette Walls calls Half Broke Horses a “true-life novel” because although she based it on the life of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, she tells the story in first person (re-creating Lily’s voice) and she also imagined details to fill in the gaps of the real story. In the author’s note at the end of the book, Walls says, “My grandmother was quite a character.” She is indeed. Her voice jumps off every page as we follow her through the…
I first read Eva Moves the Furniture when it came out in 2001. I enjoyed it then, and the characters stayed with me through the years. When I read it again to prepare this review, I enjoyed it even more. The novel begins in Scotland in 1920, with the birth of Eva and with her mother’s death. As a small child living a placid rural life with her elderly father and her aunt, Eva realizes that she has two companions…
What gives people the courage to risk their lives for political freedom? That question spurred Julia Alvarez to write In the Time of the Butterflies based on the true story of the four Mirabal sisters, three of whom were activists with the code name “butterflies” in mid-twentieth century Dominican Republic. Alvarez, who is from the Dominican Republic, became interested in their stories because of the parallels with her own family: her father had also been involved in underground activities against…
Waterlily was originally written in the 1940’s but not published until 1988, after the author’s death. This novel about the life of a Dakota woman and her family in the mid-1800’s, just as European-Americans were beginning to encroach on the land where the Plains Indians lived, is based on the author’s ancestors. November is a great time to read this book, since we are celebrating Native American Heritage Month. Ella Cara Deloria was born on the Yankton Sioux reservation and…