I’ve been a fan of Orwell and his writings since early adulthood, enjoying both his novels and his non-fiction. I’m also aware of the hidden work that many women do supporting famous men.
So I was more than curious to read Anna Funder’s new book on Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy. The book did not disappoint. I loved the writing style, mixing actual letters O’Shaughnessy wrote to family and friends, with biographical information about their marriage and personal reflections by Funder about her own experience of marriage and that of all heterosexual women who put their male partner’s interests above their own.
I was deeply moved by it at times. It’s a book that all men should read to understand more about their own often unexamined sense of male entitlement.
At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue.
"I've always loved Orwell," Funder writes, "his self-deprecating humour, his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on." So after rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation.
While this book deals with very serious topics like misogyny, sexual harassment, and the sexist
treatment of women in male-dominated workplaces, it has such an inspiring character in
Elizabeth Zott, that the book is very uplifting and joyous, as well as being laugh-out-loud funny
in places.
It’s set in 1960s California and it’s about the experiences of a brilliant female chemist
whose work is continually overlooked, leading her as a single mother to present a cooking show
on commercial television that is informed by her chemistry knowledge.
The show becomes
immensely popular with the largely female audience and inspires women to change their lives
as well as their approach to cooking. It’s inspired a Netflix TV series but I encourage people to
read the book first. I loved it.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • Meet Elizabeth Zott: a “formidable, unapologetic and inspiring” (PARADE) scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show in this novel that is “irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel. It reminds you that change takes time and always requires heat” (The New York Times Book Review).
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Newsweek, GoodReads
"A unique heroine ... you'll find yourself wishing she wasn’t fictional." —Seattle Times…
I originally saw Suzie Miller’s one woman play of the same title and I was deeply impressed with it.
The novel, based upon her play, provides more backstory of how the main character Tessa Ensler, from a working-class background, struggled to achieve success as a top criminal defence barrister. Her main working brief is to successfully defend men accused of rape or sexual assault. Then, when she is raped by a co-worker, Tessa has to face the legal system as a client pursuing justice for herself.
The book is confronting at times and sympathetic readers will be outraged at the way the legal system works against women who are further traumatised by the court process. This is a book that will hopefully be a catalyst to change the legal system.
Tessa is a young, brilliant barrister. She has worked her way up from working-class origins to the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and winning.
But an unexpected event forces her to confront the patriarchal power of the law, where the burden of proof and morality diverge.
Prima Facie by Suzie Miller is an award-winning play for a solo actor, taking us deep into a world where emotion and integrity are in conflict with the rules of the game.
After several acclaimed productions in Australia and winning the Australian Writers' Guild Award for Drama, the play received its European premiere…
Facing Patriarchy argues that analyses of violence against women have been accommodated to neoliberal government policy responses. This book locates men’s violence against women within the structures and processes of patriarchy. The book explores links between men’s violence against women and other forms of violence by men, in relation to boys and other men and men’s involvement in military conflict, wars, and terrorism, as well as environmental harm such as ‘man’-made global warming.
A conceptualisation of patriarchy is outlined that accounts for men’s structural power over women and the intersections of gender power and other forms of structural inequality, patriarchal ideologies, men’s patriarchal peer relations, the exercise of coercive control in family life, and the deeply embedded patriarchal sense of entitlement experienced by individual men.
