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A review by andforgotten
Heroines by Kate Zambreno
5.0
After an admittedly slow start (a long stretch of exposition, focusing much more on Zambreno's marriage than the Heroines the book is titled for), once I got about 1/4 in, I was really in. It picks up considerable speed after that, evolving into some sort of maelstrom that sucks you (or sucked me, in any case) in and had me glued to my kindle for hours finishing the last third this morning.
Again, I was offered a whole lot of names of women writers to investigate further, but there's also plenty of discussion of the ones I know, creating a mixture that was perfect for me. Heroines establishes a history of female writers, focusing on the modernists, on the wives of famous authors who were not allowed to expand their own writer selves, but it then casts out a wider net, looking beyond the early 20th century, leaving a trail of names like breadcrumbs, and ending with a fierce defense of female blogging, which in turn legitimizes the self-involved and intimately personal beginnings of the book.
Again, I was offered a whole lot of names of women writers to investigate further, but there's also plenty of discussion of the ones I know, creating a mixture that was perfect for me. Heroines establishes a history of female writers, focusing on the modernists, on the wives of famous authors who were not allowed to expand their own writer selves, but it then casts out a wider net, looking beyond the early 20th century, leaving a trail of names like breadcrumbs, and ending with a fierce defense of female blogging, which in turn legitimizes the self-involved and intimately personal beginnings of the book.