Chabon mentions Pynchon

[Bekah]

Well I thought of several more excellent and living / working women writers.   Four  are from Britain which seems to have a tradition of accepting women as literary beings -  from the Brontes to Woolf to Lessing and many others.   (I think the US used to be better than it is today.) 

A.S. Byatt -  Britain   (Possession and The Children's Book are both excellent -  her series starting with The Virgin in the Garden is also wonderful but I've only read the first one - the others sit politely on my tbr shelf).  Many, many awards and the Booker Prize twice. 

And Byatt's  sister -  Margaret Drabble (who refuses to allow her name to be put up for the Booker so we don't hear so much about her)  is known for The Red Queen 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Drabble

Ali Smith -  British -  (Hotel World and others - ).  
Pat Barker - British - (Regeneration Trilogy - Booker Prize) 
Esi Edugyan -  Canadian   (Half Blood Blues- this year's Booker short list) 
Margaret Atwood - Canadian -  futuristic type fiction 
Nadine Gordimer (South Africa) used to be excellent,  but apartheid was to her as the Cold War was to Le Carre.  

I honestly don't *deliberately*  read that many women writers  - just as I come across something I'd like to read by them.  I do follow the above-mentioned authors. 

I'll probably think of more later - the problem is where to draw the line -  I don't want the equivalent of Ian McEwan showing up as the best women can do.  (And I enjoy McEwan - he's just not all that "great.")  


Bekah

On Oct 27, 2012, at 9:55 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The publishing machine for literary fiction, the promotion of who over whom, heavily favors men.
> 
> the good women writers Bekah mentions do not sell as well as the men do and it isn't for quality reasons for many. (Munro).
> 
> One sorta inherent vice in the literary fiction marketplace is that female readers will read male and female writers, in general; whereas male readers will not read women writers in proportion. 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> On Oct 27, 2012, at 12:44 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Oct 25, 2012, at 10:02 PM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> alice wellintown wrote:
>>>> re-read and study the first chapter.
>>> ok
>>> 
>>>> And, looking into a handful of the post-Pynchon novels, or whatever we
>>>> call the generation that Chabon, Moody, Franzen, Whitehead, Wallace,
>>>> T.C. Boyle (?), why all males?
>>> 
>>> because they have one x & one y apiece? because the Equal Rights
>>> Amendment got torpedoed and the females are on strike?
>> 
>> 
>> Because US publishers like women to write the far more lucrative  "women's books"   as does Jodi Picault,  and maybe the better women writers,  Barbara Kingsolver,  Anne Tyler,   Marilynne Robinson etc.   Women authors are fully accepted in the nonfiction and crime genres.   There are a few who can slip by into praiseworthy literary fiction (whatever that means) - Cynthia Ozick is one.   Karen Yamashita,  (! -  I, Hotel )  Toni Morrison (fading),  Gish Jen (newer) are some others - Julie Otsuka maybe.   
>> 
>> Zadie Smith is still more British than American,  and the very British Hilary Mantel is excellent now with the Cromwell stories.  Rowling's new one - Casual Vacancy was … interesting but … she's no Zadie Smith by a long shot. 
>> 
>> Shirley Hazzard is from Australia now in the US - I doubt she has another book in her.  Alice Munro (Canada) is also aging now - as is Ozick.  
>> 
>> Bekah
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>