74653X1 Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick: 1994. 201 pages. Softcover. Brand new book. Placing herself in the avid reader's chair, Linda Wagner-Martin writes about women's biography from George Eliot and Virginia Woolf to Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Mead, and even to Cher and Elizabeth Taylor. Along the way, she looks at dozens of other life stories, probing at the differences between biographies of men and women, prevailing stereotypes about women's lives and roles, questions about what is public and private, and the hazy margins between autobiography, biography, and other genres. In quick paced and wide-ranging discussions, she looks at issues of authorial stance (who controls the narrative? who chooses which story to tell?, voice (is this story told in the traditional objective tone? and if it is, what effect does that telling have on our reading?, and the politics of publishing (why aren't more books about women's lives published? and when they are, what happens to their advertising budgets?. She discusses the problems of writing biography of achieving women who were also wives (how does the biographer balance the two?, of daughters who attempt to write about their mothers, and of husbands trying to portray their wives. Telling Women's Lives is the first overview of the writing and the history of biographies about women. It is a significant contribution to the reassessment of the work of the hundreds of women writers who have made a difference in our conception of what women's stories--and women's lives--have been, and are becoming. The book is a must read for anyone who loves reading biographies, particularly biographies of women. Linda Wagner-Martin is Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina. She is the author of Favored Strangers. "A compelling analysis of the power structures and unspoken personal investments that define biography as a genre and as a cultural institution. Why do we read women's life stories, and how does biography reframe those stories to its own ends? Linda Wagner-Martin provides surprising answers to such questions, and in the process tells her own woman's story." Ñ Shari Benstock, author of Women of the Left Bank and "No Gifts from Chance": A Biography of Edith Wharton "An insider's view of biographers at work, complete with lively revelations about what doesn't get into print. I read it with pleasure and admiration." - Diane Middlebrook, author of Anne Sexton: A Biography "A splendidly engrossing story-about-how-to-tell-a-story. This is an engaging book of ideas and gossip, humor and new information, people and publishing--by a woman biographer who seems to know everything about everyone. Wagner-Martin gives us that rare opportunity to be literary eavesdroppers, and it is a treat." - Emily Toth, author of Kate Chopin: A Life of the Author of "The Awakening" ISBN: 0813523753 $24.95USD
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