A well-documented contribution to Black literary history.
How a group of Black feminists created a model for advocacy.
Thorsson, an English professor and “white woman scholar of African American literature,” offers a richly detailed account of a group of about 30 Black women who called themselves The Sisterhood. From 1977 to 1979, they met regularly at least once per month, kept minutes, collected dues, and worked to secure “publication, publicity, and recognition for Black women writers.” Co-founded by novelist Alice Walker and poet June Jordan, both already well-known writers, the group arose from a general despondency, in the early 1970s, over the failure of civil rights activism, as well as a personal need for a place where Black women intellectuals and activists could find common ground. Members included poets, playwrights (Ntozake Shange), novelists (Toni Morrison), editors, scholars, academics, journalists (Margo Jefferson), and critics. In an appendix, the author offers concise biographies of each woman who attended, however briefly. The Sisterhood’s efforts, Thorsson asserts, led to a burgeoning of Black women’s writing in magazines such as Essenceand Ms., which the group especially targeted, and in trade publishing. Moreover, they laid the foundation for Black feminist scholarship in colleges and universities. The group dissolved partly because of its success: With new opportunities—and pressures of day jobs, family, and creative work—some members found it hard to find time to meet each month. There was also dissent about the purpose of the group, with some younger members frustrated that the goals, and even the meaning of Black feminism, were not shared. Some members sensed a “pecking order” determined by age and career stage, which made others feel unwelcome. Even after The Sisterhood stopped meeting formally, Thorsson reveals, friendships among members provided moral and practical support, and its influence persisted by building “a cultural landscape of magazines, publishers, general readers, students, and teachers who were ready for their books.”
A well-documented contribution to Black literary history.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780231204729
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Delightfully offbeat and unexpectedly moving.
An actor and comedian tells the story of her journey from being an unpaired “animal” to a “new mammal mother” in love.
After Slate completed her first book, “the issue of finding a partner…never rested and never allowed rest for [her] either.” Senses heightened, she had stepped into her most animal self and was on a quest to “fulfill [her] mammal instincts.” Loneliness and emotional vulnerability made her seek connection with neighborhood dogs and insights from books that promised to bring soulmates. When love did finally find her, the anxiety that he would reject her for being herself and “drinking tequila on a Saturday afternoon…then [having] a bath with my friend” was intense. After the pair became a couple and Slate became pregnant with the baby she called “the lifeform,” her neuroses—which the author mocks through an imaginary session with a psychologist—went into overdrive. Yet even as she wrestled with her fears, Slate also discovered that the body that was so often a “bay of doubt” was also becoming a “harbor of well-being” for the life-form to which she was attached. Then, during a time of “plague and disruption,” the author “exploded [her] vagina” to give birth, becoming not only a mother, but a “mammal with a soul that [was] born anew every day.” Though still haunted by a “purple-dark hole marking me in the afternoons,” Slate had become secure enough in the “nest” she had built for herself to see the hole more as a “bluish egg-thing” portending possibility. At times whimsical in its flights of fancy and always surprising in the moments of lyrical grace it offers, Slate’s book celebrates the transformative power of surrendering to love and life.
Delightfully offbeat and unexpectedly moving.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9780316263931
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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