L.C. (American Literature Series) [Paperback]

Susan Daitch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2002

Blending historical fiction with feminist and revolutionary politics, Susan Daitch's first novel is a complex and unique look at the controversial nature of historical representations. This story within a story within a story opens in 1968, with a preface to Dr. Willa Rehnfield's translation of Lucienne Crozier's diary. Although the authenticity of Lucienne's account is uncertain, her diary attests to her involvement in the 1848 revolution in Paris, an illicit love affair, and her eventual exile from France. Midway through Rehnfield's translation, a distinctly modern voice emerges from the footnotes. These notes belong to Dr. Rehnfield's literary executor, Jane Amme - a Berkeley radical on the run for her actions during the student riots of the 1960s - who uncovered the translated diary and became intrigued with the parallels between Lucienne's depictions of revolution and her own experiences. Dissatisfied with Dr. Rehnfield's translation, Jane defiantly rewrites the final outcome of Lucienne's story, reclaiming this forgotten Frenchwoman as a prototype of the modern feminist.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An impassioned, densely written political novel with feminist overtones, L.C. refers to Lucienne Crozier, a bourgeois Frenchwoman living in the 19th century. Lucienne keeps a diary in which she records her failed marriage, her love affair with the artist Eugene Delacroix (who paints her as the "Woman in Moroccan Costume") and, above all, her fighting on the barricades in the Revolution of 1848. Lucienne flees to Algiers with a companion and dies there of consumption. The diary survives and passes to several owners, including the American pedant, Dr. Willa Rehnfield, who fussily annotates it. But L.C.'s diary, like her life, resonates with fresh significance when it falls into the hands of Willa's assistant, a student who calls herself Jane Amme. As a revolutionary and a participant in the Berkeley riots of 1968, Jane discovers "Lucienne's story and mine run in tandem, then mine keeps going where hers leaves off." Both Lucienne and Jane are keenly aware of women's oppression. This first novel, in which fiction and history intertwine, plods doggedly at times. In its favor is the author's meticulous documentary approach to two cultures, French and American, in the throes of parallel events.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Lucienne Crozier, a fictional French woman who lends her initials to the title of this first novel, appears to be conceived as a kind of spiritual ancestor of Simone Weil, Emma Goldman, and the college women of the SDS. The overly clever narrative structure presents L.C.'s diary of 1847-48 along with the editorial remarks of her late-20th-century "translator," a woman whose work is, in turn, critically considered by a third woman, her literary executor. The tie binding Jane Amme, the executor, to L.C. herself seems to be their activist mentalities and their roles as victims of male chauvinism and political terrorism while underground. Historical persons and events are woven throughout but make the structure more top heavy than credible. While Daitch's contrivances are interesting, none realizes its satisfyingly full potential. Francisca Goldsmith, Golden Gate Univ. Lib., San Francisco
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr; 1st Dalkey edition (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564783154
• ISBN-13: 978-1564783158
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,135,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan Daitch is the author of four works of fiction. Her short fiction has been included in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction, Tin House, Guernica, Bomb, Conjunctions, McSweeney's, The Brooklyn Rail, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Ploughshares, The Village Voice, and elswhere. Her work has been the recipient of two Vogelstein awards. Her novel L.C. won an NEA Heritage Award and was a Lannan Foundation Selection. She teaches at Hunter College.