The Stories That Shape Us: Contemporary Women Write about the West: An Anthology [Hardcover]

Teresa Jordan (Editor), James R. Hepworth (Editor), Page Lambert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1995

Over the past decade a rich chorus of women's voices has emerged from the West. The Stories That Shape Us is an extraordinary anthology of twenty-six personal essays by contemporary women writers, many being published here for the first time. Ranging widely across the cultures and the regions of the West, these women relate stories of family and community, of race and gender, of commitment and displacement, of grief and repair, of spirituality and connection to the earth. Against the story of the Winning of the West, of men in (and against) the natural world, these writers propose a revised narrative, one more appropriate to a world facing stark limits and ecological disaster. Their stories are not new, but until recently we have been unable to hear them. The voices in The Stories That Shape Us have been shaped by their particular regions and cultures, but they speak to the nation, and they demand attention because they tell us what we need in order to survive. The contributors to The Stories That Shape Us are as diverse as the regions they speak from. Some of them are well-established, even best-selling authors; others are new voices soon to be heard on the national scene. All are united by their passion to tell the truth about their land and their lives - to tell the stories that have shaped them and that can help shape us all.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of some 25 essays about the West, most original and all written by women, is sharply detailed and evocative. Many of the pieces capture a pivotal point in the life of an adolescent; most are ambivalent about the treasured Western myths of new frontiers and pride in rugged individualism. Judith Barrington ("Poetry and Prejudice") is a poet-in-residence at a small-town high school in Oregon. A lesbian, she is shocked when her most promising student pens, "Go out and find all the gays and kill them." Yet her reaction dismays her. Several of these authors are descended from pioneers and have returned to their ancestral homes. But, as Mary Clearman Blew cogently points out in "The Unwanted Child," sometimes one must escape to find a life of one's own. Deeply moving essays by Mary Crow Dog, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and Mary Helen Ponce focus on the prejudices against Native Americans, Japanese and Mexicans. The background may be South Dakota, Utah or California, but these fervently expressed feelings about family, gender and search for identity are universal. Jordan is the author of Cowgirls; Hepworth teaches literature at Lewis Clark College in Idaho.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Jordan (Riding the White Horse Home, Pantheon, 1993) and Hepworth (literature, Lewis-Clark Coll., Idaho) have assembled an anthology of writing in which 23 Western women explore their roots, face fears that once silenced them, and confront issues of race. The expansiveness of the Western landscape, its "dreams of possibility," lie behind such diverse offerings as Judith Barrington's confrontation of her homosexuality within the confines of a small Oregon classroom, Judith Freeman's exploration of her Mormon upbringing, and Maxine Hong Kingston's poetic exposition of Asian Americans' experiences in a culture that often misunderstands and rejects them. Several recent works, such as Talking Up a Storm: Voices of the New West (LJ 11/1/94), have explored the Western experience, but Jordan and Hepworth's unique contribution is the generic perspective that their book provides of a nearly silent voice in American life, interesting to both men and women.
Marie L. Lally, Alabama Sch. of Mathematics & Science, Mobile
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 393 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (January 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393037231
• ISBN-13: 978-0393037234
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,546,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)