the zambreno book, heroines. observations from the writer's ex-wife.

[this isn't a review]

which i write in my capacity as the writer's ex-wife, as if assuming so-called authority from a position of non authority

observations regarding reactions towards the book:
-- the novelty aspect. how many people said: this is gonna change my view on male/female writers forever. also as if some kind of feminist awakening has happened. (wonder tho how long it will last)
[where on earth did you live before you read this book? anyhow.]

-- the distancing aspect: the way so many people distance themselves from it: it's not like that, it's different, the genre-attribution problem, the boring & unsurprising reviews: see, this is how to do it, you don't get it right, they complain about her.

-- the identification aspect: axebook: finally someone says it like it is.

-- the old hat aspect (that's my position) for 3 reasons: foremost one of sadness that books like this still have to be written today. also: a confirmation that not much has changed. also: i've heard of all those writers/writer's wives before & i would have wanted some more unknownness.

the accusation that she used some of those writers for her own purposes (and this is from my writer's ex-wife position): i would certainly have been glad if someone had made sense of my own secret creative efforts as the writer's wife. and those very efforts were secret as they needed to be protected from usurpation. and if someone would have thought about those problems, secrecy, usurpation and would find that: the necessity of that sort of sense making doesn't really stop. and this book makes excellent sense of it. and if someone had made sense of those creative efforts and used them for their own purposes, as long as it would not distort or misrepresent (then again one cannot stop anyone from having stupid ideas. i can't even stop myself from having stupid ideas.) the spirit of my stuff, no problem whatsoever. i wouldn't have minded at all. go ahead and write many more books. and i loved the encouraging note at the end of it.