A clarion call for reproductive rights.
A resonant collection that champions reproductive freedoms in the face of widespread opposition.
Editor Oria, whose previous collection, Indelible in the Hippocampus, gathered writings on the #MeToo movement, compiles another mixed-media powerhouse. Fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, and art elevate this collection into a technical triumph, finely pairing a range of forms with its contributors’ intersectional experiences. Effortlessly diverse, the book reminds readers that reproductive rights are more than a stance on abortion; many pieces explore the choice of childlessness, while others recount the horrors of nonconsensual sterilization. These brave stories are devastating to read and will inspire action (the book is produced in collaboration with the Brigid Alliance, a pro-choice fund that offers travel support for women in need). The fiction leans toward realism—e.g., the expecting lesbians in Kristen Arnett’s “The Babies” or the baby-crazy and terminally ill husband in Alison Espach’s “Let’s Just Be Normal and Have a Baby.” The nonfiction unfolds similarly but lands with a haunting, real-life gravity. Riva Lehrer’s “Curse of the Spider Woman,” which details her struggles with spina bifida and the nonconsensual sterilization she endured after a medical emergency, is one of the most affecting contributions. Beautiful, accessible poems are woven throughout, but the plays often feel trite by comparison, and a comic about White privilege is consumed by its own aggressive wokeness and lacks the heart that makes the other contributions so successful. Central to the collection is an exchange between Oria and her friend, where their discussion was overshadowed by the pandemic and the current toxic political climate. “As we continue our cultural conversation on reproductive health,” Oria writes in her introduction, “...my hope is that we fight the terrible symptom while keeping in mind the larger illness that produces it, a system in which certain bodies hold inherent power over other bodies.” Other contributors include Deb Olin Unferth, Tommy Orange, Tiphanie Yanique, and Kirstin Valdez Quade.
A clarion call for reproductive rights.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-952119-21-7
Page Count: 428
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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