The Women
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Book Overview
A New York Times Notable Book Daring and fiercely original, The Women is at once a memoir, a psychological study, a sociopolitical manifesto, and an incisive adventure in literary criticism. It is conceived as a series of portraits analyzing the role that sexual and racial identity played in the lives and work of the writer's subjects: his mother, a self-described "Negress," who would not be defined by the limitations of race and gender; the mother of Malcolm X, whose mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's misogyny and racism; brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean, who rarely identified with other blacks or women, but deeply empathized with white gay men; and the late Owen Dodson, a poet and dramatist who was female-identified and who played an important role in the author's own social and intellectual formation. Hilton Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to his inimitable scrutiny with relentless humor and sympathy. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books: a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form of all its own.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0374525293
ISBN13:9780374525293
Release Date:January 1998
Publisher:Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
Length:160 Pages
Weight:0.55 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"
Customer Reviews
3 ratings
Provocative, Original, Important
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
This book makes demands: close reading, hard thinking, and immediate re-reading. One of its great strengths is that many of those who constitute its "natural" audience will find it offensive in more ways than one. The Women transcends cant and politcal correctness to get to the heart of what matters most about personal identity in the hall of warped mirrors that constitutes our "society of the spectacle." Few works this important are written as clearly, as gracefully, as passionately. Essential reading.
A Bold, Original Treasure
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
Hilton Als discovers himself--strangely, a brilliant negress in negro-boy body--in this small but large masterpiece. Ignore the truly self-serving, hypersensitive comments of the Dodson advocate above whose comments "trash" Mr. Als. If you care about beauty, art, the psychology of negritude, the complexity of gender, honesty as it relates to revelation--then read this devastating book, which is a thrilling, one-of-a-kind experience.
Amazing
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
This book is very hard to get through and understand. It isn't until you read it for the second time that it all comes together. Als talks about the women he's known and himself and ties all the lives and minds together.
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