BiblioBitch

Once upon a time, in an era that feminists called the "second wave," there was a group of women writers who thought that Western European fairy tales were pretty fucked up. Fascinated by this fucked-up-ness, the women decided to retell the stories in order to explore and combat the ancient -isms that lay deep, deep (actually not so deep) inside. Using fairy tales as their starting point, the women created awesome and super weird novels, poems, and short stories that would delight, perplex, and frustrate feminists forever after. In honor of the Make-Believe issue of Bitch (available now!), here are a few of my favorites.

Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of attending a lecture given by Mary Roach. Many of you have probably read her books Bonk and Stiff, and thus you know she is a thorough researcher whose tastes run a bit on the weird side. As she put it, she likes to cover topics that combine "history, science, and some gross stuff." The lecture I attended was on her latest book, Packing for Mars, and the subject matter definitely fits the bill. Pooping in space, anyone?

 

In the many years that I’ve been editing book reviews, I’ve never been pitched so hard on a title as I was for Roxana Shirazi’s The Last Living Slut: Born In Iran, Bred Backstage. The book’s PR trumpeted that it "is sure to be one of the most-talked-about and controversial books of the year…the rock and roll version of The Satanic Verses." Weekly e-mails and phone calls alerted me to the "unapologetic, feminist book" and its "passionate, heartfelt tale of jilted love," urged me to interview the author, and—with that Rushdie reference—suggested that Shirazi’s tale of cock-rock conquest could easily be grounds for a fatwa.

After actually reading it, though, I’m thinking that if The Last Living Slut does turn out to be one of the most talked-about books of the year, it’ll be mainly because those publicists can’t stop fulminating about how controversial it is.

Today's Bibliobitch is a follow up to Kjerstin's Sm{Art} tribute to Frida Kahlo from last Wednesday. While Barbara Kingsolver's newest book, The Lacuna, isn't exclusivly about Frida, Diego Rivera and their circle of compatriots and compadres, the most interesting chunk of the book is certainly that which revolves around the protagonist, Harrison William Shepard's, time in their employ.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks deserves every ounce of praise that has been heaped on it. Rebecca Skloot has one heck of a story to tell, a story that actually belongs to another woman: Henrietta Lacks. The book is partially a retelling of Henrietta’s life and her death, but also a thorough chronicle of the history of HeLa cells (so named by taking the first and last two letters of the donor’s name), which were developed after Henrietta's death. These cells (pictured above) revolutionized science in so many ways it hardly seems believable that we don't have a national holiday honoring the woman. HeLa cells were invaluable in developing the polio vaccine, they were the clue to unlocking the number of chromosomes in human DNA, they were shot into space, exposed to radiation and mixed with plant cells, mice cells, cloned and still contribute every year to the development of new cancer medicine and treatment methods.

                                                            

The first line of Virginie Despentes’ King Kong Theory (written originally in French as King Kong Theorie and then translated into English) is:

"I am writing as an ugly one for the ugly ones: the old hags, the dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckables, the neurotics, the psychos, for all those girls that don’t get a look-in in the universal market of the consumable chick."

Hooked yet?