The Women

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.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 31, 1998
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 160 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374525293
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374525293
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.38 x 9 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #541,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1,412 in Black & African American Biographies #1,662 in Literary Criticism & Theory #4,717 in Women’s Biographies
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