NOMINATED FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZEA profoundly moving portrait of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, A Short History of Women chronicles five generations of women from the close of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twenty-first. Beginning in 1914 at the deathbed of Dorothy Trevor Townsend, a suffragette who starves herself for the cause, the novel traces the echoes of her choice in the stories of her descendants—a brilliant daughter who tries to escape the burden of her mother’s infamy; a granddaughter who chooses a conventional path, only to find herself disillusioned; a great-granddaughter who wryly articulates the free-floating anxiety of post-9/11 Manhattan. In a kaleidoscope of characters and with a richness of imagery, emotion, and wit, A Short History of Women is a thought-provoking and vividly original narrative that crisscrosses a century—a book for "any woman who has ever struggled to find her own voice; to make sense of being a mother, wife, daughter, and lover" (Associated Press)
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Wickedly smart . . . A gorgeously wrought and ultimately wrenching work of art."
—Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review (cover review)
"Ambitious and impressive . . . Reminiscent of a host of innovative writers from Virginia Woolf to Muriel Spark to Pat Barker . . . A witty and assured testament to the women’s movement and women writers, obscure and renowned.”—Washington Post
"A subtle and profound book, as thought-provoking as it is moving."
—Ann Packer, author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier
"What a marvelous book: one part Transit of Venus, one part Stone Diaries, one part incomparable. Actually, that's not true: she write like a female Ian McEwan."--Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Review
“Luminous . . . A subtle and profound book, as thought provoking as it is moving.”
—Ann Packer (Ann Packer ) --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
—Ann Packer (Ann Packer ) --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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More About the Author
Kate Walbert is the author of Where She Went, a New York Times Notable Book of 1998; The Gardens of Kyoto, winner of the Connecticut Book Award for fiction in 2002; and Our Kind, finalist for the National Book Award in 2004. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and numerous other publications. She lives in New York City and Connecticut with her family.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic, marvelous, beautiful!,
By Forest dweller "Forest dweller" (Felton, Ca) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Short History of Women: A Novel (Paperback)
I have never read this author before, but I love historical fiction, and cannot put this book down. I am reading it slowly and absorbing the characters, the time lines, the relationships of this family. It is amazing to me how K. Walbert just transports you from here and now into her universe- the language of the early 20th century England, for example- completely entrancing, beautifully woven stories of hope, loss, and really what drives people to do what they do. Bravo!!
9 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert,
By
This review is from: A Short History of Women: A Novel (Paperback)
I suppose the first sentence brings hope of an interesting book: "Mum starved herself for suffrage, Grandmother claiming it was just like Mum to take a cause too far." However, what follows is the rest of the book, which is is quite boring. The characters are neither interesting nor is their way of life. Some characters see their lives as a challenge posed by their ancestor, but the connection is weak.Moving back and forth through time in all media is perfectly acceptable, but this book is a mess. Thank God for the family tree at the beginning of the book! Nonetheless, some of the characters from the family tree are left out. Basically, the author does not have a clear idea how to move her characters through time. Kate walbert said that she was not happy with putting the book in chronological order, but she hasn't a clue how to organize the book "out of order." Karen Nemet-Nejat
2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Short History of Women: A Novel (Paperback)
Brief, cogent, pithy.Seems to capture tue striking points of each era. A great read. B. Dubois
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