The Female Complaint: Tales of Unruly Women

by Rosalie Morales Kearns (Editor)

Overview

Fiction. Women's Studies. The thirty-six stories in this anthology, all by women authors, center around female characters who follow their own paths and tell the powers-that-be what they don't want to hear. These women stand up for themselves, for each other, for their beliefs. The characters include housewives and high school students, a stand-up comedian, an artist, an attendant at a nursing home, several scientists. There's a woman who turns into a leopard; a chemist who comes to the rescue of a resuscitated Isaac Newton; and a female giant who metes out rough justice in a futuristic penal colony for male criminals. Navigating a fine line between anger and laughter, these are raucous stories of solidarity, resistance, transformation, and joy. Contributors include Gina Ochsner, Kathleen Alcalá, Theodora Goss, Kim Chinquee, and Katherine Vaz.

"Thirty-six spellbinding stories about the active, spirited lives of women... Throughout each is the common denominator of an active female character who embarks on her own hero's journey... With prose that ranges from the humorous to the lyric and forms that range from the real to the magical, here is a vital addition to contemporary literature."—Kirkus

"This is more than women being unruly: this is women being courageous, outrageous, brutally honest, and more than anything, talented. The stories sing off the page—and then turn into a howl of rage, delight and hope. THE FEMALE COMPLAINT is a collection that deserves to be taught, and read, for years to come."—Rene Denfeld, author of The Enchanted

"Forty years ago when women blazed literary trails, they were paths through the woods where no one heard the trees falling. This time on a paved road through landscapes urban, suburban, exurban, and rural, these women are still throwing themselves and their lives out into new thematic territory."—Cris Mazza, author of Various Men Who Knew Us as Girls and co-editor of Chick-Lit: Postfeminist Fiction

"Often unsettling in the best sense, these stories cross cultures and mental states... Compelling and ambitious stories dedicated to honoring the more turbulent desires."—Lee Upton, author of The Tao of Humiliation: Stories and Bottle the Bottles the Bottles the Bottles: Poems

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780991355556
Publisher:	Shade Mountain Press
Publication date:	11/01/2015
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Rosalie Morales Kearns, a writer of Puerto Rican and Pennsylvania Dutch descent, is the author of the magic- realist story collection Virgins & Tricksters (Aqueous, 2012). She is also the founder of Shade Mountain Press, a new feminist publishing house promoting literature by women.

Editorial Reviews

"Thirty-six spellbinding stories about the active, spirited lives of

women. . . . Throughout each is the common denominator of an active female

character who embarks on her own hero's journey. . . . With prose that

ranges from the humorous to the lyric and forms that range from the real

to the magical, here is a vital addition to contemporary literature."—

Kirkus

"This is more than women being unruly: this is women

being courageous, outrageous, brutally honest, and more than anything,

talented. The stories sing off the page—and then turn into a howl of rage,

delight and hope. The Female Complaint is a collection that

deserves to be taught, and read, for years to come."—Rene Denfeld, author

of The Enchanted

"Forty years ago when women blazed literary

trails, they were paths through the woods where no one heard the trees

falling. This time on a paved road through landscapes urban, suburban,

exurban, and rural, these women are still throwing themselves and their

lives out into new thematic territory."—Cris Mazza, author of Various

Men Who Knew Us as Girls and co-editor of Chick-Lit: Postfeminist

Fiction

From the Publisher

2015-08-18
Thirty-six spellbinding stories about the active, spirited lives of women. Female characters are still often relegated to the shadows in literature, written only as supporting devices to prop up the journeys of the male characters. This is not the case in this much-needed anthology. In Sarah Marian Seltzer's "Ironing," a story of first pre-pubescent love, the female gaze and female sexual desire are centered. Here, a schoolgirl's first crush—and her ensuing desire to change herself into the kind of girl her crush would like—deepens into a commentary on both beauty and male predatory behavior. In "Bringing Down the Clouds" by Kathleen Alcalá, Estela, the gatekeeper of a home for female survivors of domestic violence and their children, is drawn into a secret society of women who seek greater rights. And in Kim Chinquee's "Physics," a single mom working on her thesis tries to face the truth about a boyfriend who is no good. One of the most compelling tales is Alison Newall's "Heart Like a Drum," in which a staid PTA mom slowly transitions into a leopard and flees suburbia for the wild. The stories here run the gamut of romantic love, female friendship, familial relationships, and workplace politics. But throughout each is the common denominator of an active female character who embarks on her own hero's journey. Structured in five parts (Resistance, Solidarity, Entanglements, Mother Figures, and Transformations), this anthology hearkens back to the groundbreaking collections of women's writing published in the 1980s and '90s in a glorious homage. The editor is to be lauded for the effort at diversity that showcases women from a multiplicity of identities. With prose that ranges from the humorous to the lyric and forms that range from the real to the magical, here is a vital addition to contemporary literature.

Kirkus Reviews