De Publishers Weekly
Kaye/Kantrowitz herself pins down the problem with her debut short-story collection, in the two-sentence conclusion to a tale of enraged women who murder two alleged rapists: "I know you don't like this story. But it could be true." Her fictions, most of them about being lesbian and/or Jewish, have the ring of truth in their deeply felt emotions and intriguing characters, and there are moments of humor and poignancy, particularly in the portraits of aging Jewish leftists--"My parents could analyze the historical roots and class base of absolutely anything: a jar of peanut butter; the nubbly pink blanket I tucked between my legs every night. . . ." But ultimately, it's hard to like the book. There are a number of unpleasantly graphic passages about bulimia--"I ate it, the whole half-gallon of ice cream, spoon and spoon, and threw it up, still cold and sweet"--and a dog whose head is split with an ax, and Kaye/Kantrowitz has an unfortunate tendency to be overly earnest: "I feel like just standing up on the subway and proclaiming I'M A JEW. Would anyone especially hate me?" Kaye/Kantrowitz is coeditor of The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Del Library Journal
Taking the reader through the feminist movement from Brooklyn, Harlem, and Berkeley in the Sixties to the feminist politics of the Seventies and the renewed activism of the Eighties, this collection explores the issues confronting Jewish women moving from the left into feminist and lesbian politics. American anti-Semitism, the American Jewish response to Israel, the language of activism, and daily life are among the subjects considered. In "dance on the face of the earth," a woman's sexual identity is challenged, and she leaves the man in her life and returns to women. In the title story, a group of women attending a Jewish caucus at a midwestern university join audience and performers in protesting anti-Semitic lines in a play performed there. A fine collection of strong feminist writing.
- Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Biografía del autor
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, a writer, activist, and professor, was born in 1945 in Brooklyn, and has worked in social change movements since the sixties. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, where she taught the first Women’s Studies course in the department. She currently teaches at Queens College in the Jewish Studies, History and Comparative Literature departments. She is the author of several books, including: The Issue Is Power (Aunt Lute Books 1992), My Jewish Face & Other Stories (Aunt Lute Books, 1990), We Speak in Code (Motheroot Publications, 1980), and The Colors of Jews (Indiana University Press 2007). Her writings are widely published and anthologized.
