In Walks a Woman

Warning:  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!After you have read VICTORIAN PSYCHO–a novel that made NPR's Books We Love 2025 List for “seriously good writing”--come back and listen to a lively run down of the historical background that Feito weaves into her narrative.  There’s so much of it that we can’t begin to cover it all in an hour! Feito brilliantly conjures the Victorian social landscape, and she does it all via the distinct voice of Winifred Notty, a ferociously bright, funny, and totally unhinged narrator.  But is Winifred any more unhinged than the world that she inhabits?  Indeed, could one argue that Winifred, this psychotic and goal-oriented governess, a product of the moral hypocrisies of an era that felt utterly sure of its own righteousness?Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa enjoy a historic journey replete with chamber pots, tooth decay, arsenic fashion, animal fat hair products, and Christmas cards featuring dead birds and marching lobsters.  REFERENCES:To learn more about the author, head to her website, virginiafeito.com.Check out art by James Ensor, the artist after whom Feito names the house in the novel. Doesn’t it hit the right mood?Here is a link to the painting that features in Ensor House’s Dining Decor.For a fun explanation of chamber pots and open drawers, check out Elsie Jean, The Well Dressed Historian's video on You Tube.If you’d like to read more about preparing and eating the delicacy that is the ortelan bunting (the bird the book mentions a diner eating, bones and all), you should check out this informative and entertainingly-written Atlas Obscura Article that includes pics.  Here is the interview in which Feito mentions her mother’s reaction to the first draft of the novel.Here is just one of many articles on Victorian Christmas cards, and you can also just google samples of Vic Christmas cards and judge for yourself. This National Library of Medicine article cites statistics about how many deaths in 19th century Britain could be traced back to infectious diseases. Here is the link to The Molly Brown Museum page about deadly Victorian cosmetics and apparel, like arsenic green ballgowns.For a taste of Victorian beauty advice, check out an excerpt from an 1870 Harper's Bazaar.Here is a link to the Wikipedia page that quotes chapters from the Ugly Girl Papers.Here is a link to read about the Victorian Corset Controversy that includes the letter to the editor quoted in this episode.

Warning:  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!Get lost vampires: there are some even scarier monsters in the Gothic-sphere. They live in High Place, the mysterious, ramshackled (...and seemingly undulating) house at the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Best-Selling 2021 novel, MEXICAN GOTHIC.  Join IWAW this week as Sonja shares some deep and fascinating research into Mexican history, European Victorians’ cultural fears, competing theories of eugenics, colonial tropes, and some inside info on the world of mushrooms.  Vanessa sits raptly at Sonja’s knee for this one, and you should join us because Sonja’s research truly helps a reader appreciate the wealth of historical and cultural knowledge that Moreno-Garcia weaves through her atmospheric, unpredictable, and satisfyingly subversive Gothic tale.Along the way, there are plenty of ghostie Gothic Easter eggs, and Sonja and Vanessa agree on everything except the fate of one character: Vanessa argues for cuddles and Sonja for incineration. REFERENCESTo start your own mushroom culinary adventures, do check out Sonja’s dad’s book, A Cook's Book of Mushrooms by Jack CzarneckiWhen the Past Isn't Dead: Post Colonialism and Horror in Mexican GothicA Piece of Britain Lost in Mexico, BBCReal de Monte: A British Mining Venture in MexicoFungal Colonialism in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic"Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge"You Foolish Men" by Sor Juana

WARNING: SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!!What if Count Dracula came to small-town America?  That’s the premise of this brilliant vampire novel by the most famous and successful “What if?” writer, ever: Stephen King.  Not only is this novel gripping and satisfyingly plotted, it’s beautifully written and goes way beyond the mere category of “horror” novel.  The characters are engaging and the analysis of small-town American life is loving, honest, and unflinching. Treat yourself to reading it before you dive into this episode–you won’t regret it. Join Sonja and Vanessa as they explore what ‘SALEM’S LOT owes to the Gothic tradition, and to Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, in particular.  With Stoker in mind, we also consider King’s use of female characters. Do we like them?  Is there a Mina Harker in this American town?  Is there a vampy Lucy, snacking on innocent American children? There’s for sure a creepy house–the Marsten House–and we will discuss parallels with Hill House, given that we dedicated an episode to Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, and King literally quotes and references her novel in ‘SALEM’S LOT.Finally, as we’ve established this season, writers use Gothic to metaphorically explore a real-life fear…King’s Gothic work is no exception, but for him, it’s not patriarchy.  It is, however, not unrelated to patriarchy, and it goes back to a story that’s one of the oldest and most influential in human history.  Hint:  think talking snake. Along the way, we bump into Sigmund Freud and a priest with “serious mojo,” Sonja explains how to ward off a vampire when at the doctor’s office, and Vanessa makes a rare comment about being older than her co-host. REFERENCESCheck out our episodes on Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and on Bram Stoker’s DRACULA. 

WARNING:  This episode contains SPOILERS!!!!In 1959, one hundred and sixty five years after Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, one might reasonably have thought that there was nothing new to be found under the gloomy Gothic moon.  Such a supposition, however, would be discounting the immense talent of Shirley Jackson, one of America’s greatest writers.  In THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, Jackson not only created a uniquely terrifying novel–per the master horror writer, Stephen King— but she also innovates the Gothic genre.  In this episode, Sonja and Vanessa explore what it was about Jackson’s life that made her the only person who could write this singular book.  And yet, despite HILL HOUSE's sui generis status, the novel depicts a widespread, bleak existence that many female readers of the mid-twentieth century would have recognized.  Jackson fully explores the metaphorical possibilities of the Gothic genre to dramatize invisible forces shaping 1950's and 1960's American women’s identities, dreams, and place in the fabled nuclear family.Along the way, Sonja speculates on the possibility that all children carry a dash of the demonic, and Vanessa confirms that the family “portrait” that Sonja thinks is naked is, indeed, naked.  REFERENCES:Here is a link to the article by Barb Lien-Cooper that makes the case that Hill House works to rid itself of the non-Crain-family guests, not unlike the Oscar Wilde story, "The Canterville Ghost," (that is mentioned in Jackson’s novel).Vanessa quotes a writer wondering if we are beyond needing a haunted house metaphor to express the condition of women’s lives, and it’s worth checking out the whole article, by C.J. Hauser, entitled “Some Reasons My Niece is Probably the Reincarnation of Shirley Jackson.” To read about what Vanessa calls the “happy ending” theory, check out this fascinating 2017 article by Brittany Roberts, “Helping Eleanor Come Home: A Reassessment of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.” Roberts makes a very convincing argument that the house is actually trying to help Eleanor.  Roberts argues:  “If previous readings of Hill House have largely focused on the relationship between Eleanor and Hill House as abusive and unidirectional, a relationship that ignites a process of madness and dissolution of selfhood for Eleanor, I instead argue that the process undergone by Eleanor and Hill House is one of mutual fulfilment, a process of accommodating one another’s needs. As I demonstrate, Hill House encourages Eleanor to achieve the romance of isolation that she fantasises about, thereby propelling Eleanor to actualise both the self she has begun to construct through fantasy and her most inwardly cherished desires.15 In return, Eleanor provides a genuine love and appreciation for Hill House and the seclusion, isolation, and silence it promises. Far from participating in the dissolution of Eleanor’s selfhood, then, Hill House, and the many nonhuman emblems of domesticity and seclusion that Eleanor comes to care for throughout the novel, are instead co-creators of Eleanor’s newfound identity.”

Welcome to Manderley…or, rather, the romantic dream of Manderley.  Who needs a repurposed abbey or a Alpine castle when you have the genuine fire-devastated, ivy-swarmed, misty ruins of a historic manor house along the tempestuous north Atlantic coast? As if that were not Gothic enough, let’s go all out with an orphaned heroine and a very carefully guarded family secret.SPOILERS Ahoy when you join Sonja and Vanessa as they discuss this 1938 bestseller, REBECCA.  It’s often promoted as a Gothic romance…but is it?  Is Maxim De Winter a proper Gothic hero?  Would you ride in his car? Are there real ghosts?  How are we defining a haunting? Is our unnamed narrator reliable?  Do we like her? Do the servants–once again–add a vital dimension to the mood and twists to the plot?  And which Mrs. De Winter wins? It probably depends on how you feel about having tea with bread and butter.Along the way, Sonja redefines “gentle flirtation,” and Vanessa blushes, perusing a sexy botanical Tinder profile. REFERENCES:The edition of REBECCA with the really insightful Afterword by Sally Beauman that Vanessa mentions is the 2023 Back Bay Books Edition.

If you’ve ever contemplated a governess career, perhaps Henry James’s THE TURN OF THE SCREW will give you pause.  Or maybe this bite-sized Gothic ghost story will thrill you with the chance of being in charge of a beautiful English country house with no master to tell you what to do.  But choose your adventure carefully because you might end up haunted and/or crazy and/or murdering someone.  Join Sonja and Vanessa as they do a quick Henry James 101, and explore WITH SPOILERS his classic, 1898 ghost story.  Are there ghosts?  Is the governess losing her mind?  Why did Miles get expelled from boarding school? Are Miles and Flora the OG creepy literary kids?  What role does hysteria play? Is there a spell cast over the entire plot?  Is the story a trap to catch the reader? How does the novella, set at Bly Manor, link to the Netfilx show, THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR? We’ll address these questions, and along the way, Sonja will propose a sexy theory, and Vanessa will suggest that the bosom can be a murder weapon. REFERENCES:While we did not look at JANE EYRE as a Gothic tale, we did think about whether it counts as a female odyssey in Season 1:  Can a Lowly Governess Have an Odyssey?Here is an overview of James Literary Criticism, including Edmund Wilson’s influential article, “The Ambiguity of Henry James” from 1934.Here is the article about how Henry James felt about Jane Austen.For more information about the Hysteria Diagnosis in the late 19th/early 20th century, check out this link. Here’s a great article celebrating the ambiguity of Turn of the Screw.Here is a link to the article that offers Henry James's take on several women writers that Vanessa cites in the episode.

In the world of the Gothic, after you bang on a few castle doors, you’re bound to run into a vampire.  Bram Stoker, barrister and theater manager, notably closed out the 19th century by leaving us with his vampire masterpiece, DRACULA.In this week’s episode, Sonja and Vanessa explore how Bram Stoker brews his very own brand of Gothic.  Legends of the Carpathian mountains mix with modern inventions and modern ideas, like that of the New Woman.  With 3 established female vampires, a newly-minted female vampire, and one beloved young wife teetering on the brink of the undead, women make up a crucial part of a tale that spans from England to the heart of eastern Europe. There are undeniably strong women in the novel, but is it a feminist text?  Along the way, we meet a “train fiend,” Sonja muses on sexy lancets, and Vanessa concedes that lawyers may well be the greatest blood suckers of all.REFERENCES:Here is a link to the article by Dracula scholar, Elizabeth Miller, and her overview of scholarship of the novel. If you would like to know more about Dracula scholar, Elizabeth Miller, then check out her wiki page. It’s so impressive how much she single-handedly added to the field.  One might say, in walked a woman, and the rest is history.Sonja read from supporting materials in her edition of Dracula that can be bought new or second hand.

Who wants to break all the rules? Who wants to tear it all down and make the world anew? Emily Brontë does, that’s who. If you imagined WUTHERING HEIGHTS was some quaint Victorian romantic ghost story…think again.  Honestly, there is just no other book like it.  This 1848 work is truly sui generis. It’s like Emily Brontë, in her one and only book, before she dies at age 30, writes an off-the-scale earthquake into life under the unassuming and isolated Yorkshire moors, and her quake violently, mercilessly shakes the foundations of Patriarchy, class distinctions, racial hierarchy, traditional marriage, expectations of femininity, the role of the Gothic heroine, traditional ideas of masculinity, Christianity, the legal system, traditions of hospitality, and the tropes of Romance, including the so-called brooding romantic hero.  Nothing escapes unscathed.  Join Sonja and Vanessa as they share some brief biographical information on Emily Brontë, explain some notable critical takes on the novel, consider the outer limits of revenge, explain why Heathcliff is rarely portrayed accurately in film adaptations, and pretty much stand in complete awe of WUTHERING HEIGHTS, a page-turning labyrinthian story about storytelling. Along the way, Sonja pines for a dance with strangers while wearing a red dress, and we try not to think very hard about Heathcliff’s double-wide-coffin fantasy.  REFERENCES:If you have not read WUTHERING HEIGHTS, check out your local bookstore, and if you don’t have one, consider ordering from our legendary bookstore, The Raven, right here in beautiful, quirky, historical, downtown Lawrence, Kansas.Here is the link to the Bronte House Museum page that details the racial history of Liverpool and how that affects our reading of Heathcliff.The article that Sonja mentions about the symbolism of Catherine’s whip, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, can be found here.Here is an online edition of WUTHERING HEIGHTS that includes Charlotte Brontë’s introduction, explaining the sisters’ pen names, their publishing history, Emily’s temperament, and Charlotte’s take on her younger sister’s novel.  Sonja mentions the term “femme covert,” and if you are not sure what that is, here is a link to an article from the National Women's History Museum about the concept and the huge impact it has had on women historically.We also reference previous IWAW episodes linked here:  Interview with Heather Aimee O'Neill; Emily St. Aubert is the heroine of Ann Radcliffe’s novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, which we cover in a two-part episode; our episode on Tristan & Iseult explores the origins of romance; and we have an episode on Jane Eyre that intersects with the WUTHERING HEIGHTS episode in terms of the Gothic and romance.

Once a genre gains popularity, here come the parodies.  Jane Austen grew up, petticoats deep in Gothic novels, and Jane had thoughts on reading them, writing them, and the effect they had on women readers. Our last novel, Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO is mentioned multiple times in Jane Austen’s NORTHANGER ABBEY, finished in 1799 but not published until a few months after Austen’s death in 1817.Join Sonja and Vanessa as they explore the historical and literary context of this lesser known and sadly lesser-loved Jane Austen novel.  Find out why being Mrs. Tilney would be better than being Mrs. Darcy. Hear about a Jane Austen narrator that is not ambiguous and hard to pin down in a meta story about reading…a story that seems to agree with IWAW: namely, that stories shape us.Along the way, we discover  there is no crime in early 19th century England, we confirm that female frenemies have always been a thing, and Jane Austen finds herself caught in a late 18th century catch-and-kill publishing move. REFERENCES:If you have not read NORTHANGER ABBEY, you should stop by your local bookstore, and if you don’t have one, order it from our local Lawrence bookstore, The Raven.The novel that references monks molesting nuns is Matthew Lewis’s THE MONK from 1796.If you have not read Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO from 1794, you can dive into those 600+ pages, or let us do the reading for you by listening to our fun, educational, romp through the plot in our MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO shows, Part 1 and Part 2. Also, as always, we highly recommend Rachel Feder’s brilliant study of romantic heroes, THE DARCY MYTH or at least check out  our show about it.Much of the biographical information for this episode was taken from Claire Tomalin’s careful and thorough biography, JANE AUSTEN: A LIFE.We also reference Charlotte Lennox’s THE FEMALE QUIXOTE  from 1752 & FORDYCE'S SERMONS a collection of advice to young ladies from 1766.

As with the first part of our Udolpho episode, this is full of spoilers, so don’t listen if you are up for reading about 300 pages (approximately half) of this Ann Radcliffe novel.  However, if you are seeking a lively summary that will allow you to chat confidently about THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO at your next cocktail party, do push play.When you do, you will find yourself waist deep in banditti and pirates (which might seem like the same thing, but you’d be wrong).  The story leaves the fabled Castle of Udolpho, but the intrigue does not end as Emily winds her way back, by road and by sea, to her homeland of France, and the patriarchal real estate hustle continues, while Radcliffe makes sure that every, single imaginable moment of mystery that we’ve encountered in the novel is tidily and rationally explained. Then, we turn to the question of whether you should go ahead and read this novel yourself.  What will you gain?  What is there that we have not captured in our summary?  The answer might surprise you.Along the way, Sonja finds handy travel cash under a horse’s saddle, Vanessa does some “performative sighing” after summarizing this brick of a novel, and both Sonja and Vanessa agree that wallowing in melancholy does have its undeniable charms.  REFERENCES:After recording about 50 episodes, itt’s hard not to refer back to books we’ve read for the pod, and you can find all of it in our previous seasons:  check out our episode on Samuel Richardson’s 1740 Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded; for the reference on Mrs. Ramsey and Lily Brisco, here is a link to our To the Lighthouse episode; in the discussion about metaphorical windows, you might like these episodes: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Madeline Miller’s Circe, Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba,  Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and our 3-part analysis of Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.If you are interested in our spicy episode on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” you’ll have to go to our Patreon–but we promise it’s worth it.

Welcome to Season 4: “Haunting Women”!Here’s your first scare: Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 gothic classic, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, is 290,897 words long.  For the average reader, reading at a speed of 300 WPM, that would take 13 hours and 5 minutes to read. And that does not count potty and snack breaks. If you are up for it, go for it!  If not, as Sonja likes to say, we offer “Cliff’s Notes for Adults,” and we’ll bravely take you through the book.  So are there spoilers in this episode?  YES. YES. YES.THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO was first published in 4 volumes, so this episode (dare we say heroically?) takes you through both volumes 1 & 2 in about an hour.  What awaits you?  Lots of patriarchy in the form of castles, marriages for property, and men who say that it’s your fault they have to kidnap you because you wouldn’t say yes to their marriage proposal.  We also pay tribute to Ann Radcliffe’s expansive imagination: Radcliffe, a woman who had never left her home country of England before writing this sprawling travel narrative through mountains and dales and mountains and villages…and, well, more mountains.  We review what “Gothic” means, especially to British writers of the 18th and 19th century, and we once again find that saucy, babbling servants make the lives of bland rich people more exciting. Along the way, we bump into Scooby-Doo, and we play some Udolpho Bingo (Sonja wins), and both Sonja and Vanessa claim they’d marry a stalker who carved sonnets about them into garden walls.  REFERENCES:Vanessa’s reference to Pamela is to Samuel Richardson’s 1740 novel, PAMELA: OR, VIRTUE REWARDED, which we cover in Season 3: Episode 5.

Sonja and Vanessa thought it best to put the last episode of season 3 safely on their Patreon...if you go there, you'll find out why! www.patreon.com/InWalksAWoman

This book and this episode is like a fruit smoothie by the sunny seashore–light, sweet, gentle first love vibes. This is a YA selection we have chosen to find out what the youngest set values in romance stories.  Appropriately, it is not an “E” episode–first time in the season!  Sonja and Vanessa are joined again by their Designated Gen Z Reader, Sage McHenry, to better understand the meteoric rise of this book series…now television series.Unless you’ve been living under ye olde proverbial Rock, you know that the “Summer I Turned Pretty” franchise is a cultural phenomenon with staggering fan engagement on all social platforms.  Join us as we explore what makes it so appealing and what tropes it shares with other romances we’ve analyzed this season. Of course, Vanessa asks Sage some pesky questions, like, are all the messages of the series positive for younger female readers. As always, Sage “Designated Z” McHenry gives as good as she gets.  Join us to see what you think…can we enjoy something and look at it critically?  Along the way, incest jumps out at us, Sonja loyally picks the “right” boy from the series to keep her daughter happy, and Vanessa finds out the golden retriever she hastily adopted might not turn out to be as adorable as he seemed. 

Sonja and Vanessa go on a thrilling journey with Millennial reader and Romantasy fan/expert, Haley Bajorek.  If you’ve ever wondered what Romantasy is, why it has a huge fan base, whether it’s for you, and where to start, this episode fills in all the blanks!For Gen X readers like Sonja and Vanessa who grew up on tales such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the focus of this episode, Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015) is a radical departure.  Dare we say a paradigm shift.  Forget moody men dressed up as fortune tellers by firelight–Haley helps us get our bearings in Romantasy worlds where giant wolf-lions turn out to be hot fairies who look like Chris Hemsworth…with pointy ears. and retractable claws. Biting might happen.  Riddles must be solved. Miles must be traveled.  And here we are (again!) talking about the female odyssey. Romantasy is a genre by women, for women, and very much a female community endeavor, and even if it’s not your cup of stars, Haley offers a bite-sized, juicy taste of this feminist branch of fantasy literature.Along the way, we wish we had a harem, we get vertigo learning the practical implications of having a “mate,” and skulls and peppers become sign posts to new worlds.  REFERENCES:We could not have done this episode without the guidance and collaboration of our dear friend, Haley Bajorek, who often goes bravely where no man would go, and we are so lucky to be in her circle.  Thank you, Haley!If you want to dip your toes into Romantasy, you can start with Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, like we did, and if you want to check out her whole universe, the Sarah J. Maas Website would be a good starting point.If you are more in the mood for dragons, check out Rebecca Yarros's Website where love and battle take flight.

First, you should rush to read Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests, a fantastic romance thriller set in 1922, post World War 1 England.  We don’t give spoilers, exactly, but the historical context we cover gives you some idea of events and situations that come up in the novel.  And the novel is wall-to-wall women’s issues:  society’s expectations of decorum, cooking, cleaning, birth control, wifely duties, sex, widowhood, spinsterhood, motherhood, and a fair amount about 1920's housekeeping.  Sonja helps us understand the economic state of the UK after WW1, women’s voting rights, early attempts at family planning, abortion law and practices, and whether there were laws about lesbians.   Along the way, we find out some people (not female people, mind you) once believed that robust menstruation was a sign of good health, and we learn that “servants don’t organize themselves,” while someone dramatic dons a dress made entirely of jewels.REFERENCESWe reference other IWAW episodes here:  S3E1 on Tristan & Iseult; S3E on Romeo & Juliet; and the reference to the “ritual death” is from our episode on Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure. Sarah Waters has written several novels during her very successful career, and you can find out more about her at her website.The biography that Sonja mentions is Vera Britain’s Testament of Youth, which is still in print, and if you want an overview of her life, this article from The Guardian offers a quick insight.Marie Stopes’s 1918 work, Married Love, can be found at Project Gutenberg.Here’s a great essay about the fear that lesbians were taking over Britain after World War 1:  "The Cult of the Clitoris": Sexual Panics and the First World WarCheck out Maude Allen in her jewels-only dress as Salome.Here’s a 2024 article from The Guardian, that hits the high points of the Edith Thompson and Freddie Bywaters's Trial, plus how even a hundred years later, Edith’s heirs are trying to clear her name.  

Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 A Farewell to Arms is almost always captioned as a tragic romance.  Is it?  Tragic, yes.  Romance…debatable.  Is Frederick Henry a compelling romantic hero and Catherine Barkley an inspiring romantic heroine?  Join Sonja and Vanessa as they run through the text (SPOILER ALERT), and give their verdict on the love story.This show will also offer you a mini Hemingway bio, an explanation of his writing philosophy and style, and it highlights distinctions between warfare on the Western and Italian Fronts in World War 1.  Vanessa also shares an overview of feminist literary critics’ takes on Hemingway’s treatment of Catherine–both supportive and disapproving.Along the way, we discover how Catherine Barkley feels about rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms; we bump up against old-man-doctor theories, claiming the benefits of “good” alcohol during pregnancy, and stale Cheetos--of course--make a cameo. REFERENCES:Other Episodes of IWAW are mentioned:  the reference to Tristan and Iseult is explained in IWAW S3E1; the reference to Elly and Gaunt and Paul Fussell (author of The Great War and Modern Memory) are explained in our episode on Alice Winn’s novel, In Memoriam, IWAW S3E8; to learn more about Romeo as a romantic hero, check out our 3-part series on Romeo and Juliet that starts with IWAW S3E2; Colin Eversea is the hero of Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure, covered in IWAW S3E7; and the reference to Esther in Sarah Water’s The Paying Guests links to our next show, that drops on Friday, 8/22/25.  Stay tuned!Here is a link to Ernest Hemingway’s essay, "The Art of the Short Story" from 1959.CORRECTION:  The quote from Hemingway in which he mentions raisin bread is actually from a 1954 TIME Magazine interview that can be found here.The audio of Hemingway's Nobel Prize Speech is a quick listen, in case you are interested, and it focuses mostly on the loneliness of a writer’s life.

Sonja and Vanessa LOVE Alice Winn’s 2024 novel, In Memoriam, a moving love story of two soldiers fighting on the fabled Western Front in World War 1.  Winn nimbly weaves numerous, real historical events through the friends-to-lovers romance of two teens who fight bravely for their country but have to keep their love secret from that very government–on pain of death.Our goal in this episode is not to summarize or spoil the novel, but rather to act as a useful companion to the text.  You could listen to it before, during, or after reading the book. Most of us know more about WW2 than WW1, and when we encounter historical novels, we often wonder, “how much of this really happened?”  Our episode hopes to offer a larger historical context and flesh out some details that Winn mentions briefly in the narrative, character dialogue, and setting descriptions.   Can you read and enjoy this novel without knowing more about WW1?  ABSOLUTELY.  Winn never lets you feel lost or confused, but if you are a fellow historically-curious reader, we’ve done a little homework for you. So relax and enjoy the research! Along the way, Sonja politely describes how early 20th century European royalty were one big, um, family, followed shortly after by Vanessa explaining feathers as weapons. REFERENCES:Do yourself a huge favor and pick up a copy of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam.Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory was a landmark study of the impact of World War 1 on our fundamental understanding of the world, of war, of trust in government, leading to the modern sense of alienation and fragmentation.George Orwell’s essay “Such, Such Were the Joys,” published posthumously in 1952 describes his youthful experience at an elite all-boys boarding school as a "world of force and fraud and secrecy." Is Gaunt “a Darcy”? refers to the main argument of Dr. Rachel Feder’s brilliant work, The Darcy Myth (IWAW covers it in Season 3, Episode 6)Margaret MacMillan's insightful essay, "The Rhyme of History: The Lessons of the Great War"  can be read hereThe history podcasts mentioned in the show are The Rest is History, History that Doesn’t Suck, and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series “Blueprint to Armageddon” that can be purchased directly from his site, dancarlin.comFURTHER READING SUGGESTIONS ON WW1:Now it Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs is a reporters description of WW1 after the war when he could finally tell what he really witnessed because government censorship (on all sides) made that impossible during the conflict. It can be purchased here.If you are curious how the war happened, Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers is very accessible to the nonhistorian reader.Barbara Tuchman’s 1963 Pulitzer Prize-winning account, The Guns of August vividly portrays the sheer scale and violence of the opening of the war. 

Sonja and Vanessa dip into a wonderful historical romance novel by Julie Ann Long, The Perils of Pleasure, Book 1 of 11 in her marvelous Pennyroyal Green series.  We set up the first three chapters, but that’s just the premise of the book, and there are no spoilers.  We discuss the literary lineage of regency romance novels, like this one, both to Pride and Prejudice and even to Tristan & Iseult.   Sonja brings up some thought-provoking questions worth considering:  What is the specific appeal of “Regency” romances? Are there essential elements that any good romance novel must contain?  Is it disempowering to women to read romance novels?  Along the way, we find out that Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet share a crucial life moment, Vanessa finally learns what a “plot moppet” is, and Sonja discovers that she needs to write a Regency, Amish, vampire romance novel.REFERENCESJulie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure can be purchased here.Julie Ann Long has a website that gives a good sense of her whole (very impressive) body of work.A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis can be purchased here.  This was such a great resource!  If you love romance novels, you would find Regis’s study fascinating.  And check out the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Website.  Savvy and fun!

If you like your literature with a side of pop culture, you’ll love what’s on the menu for today: Rachel Feder’s clever & informative study, The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs, and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love (2023).  Let’s face it, whether or not we have read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and whether we love or hate it, Lizzie and Mr. Darcy’s love story has had a massive influence on our culture, specifically in terms of how straight women view the “story” of love and envision their “ideal” guy.Sonja and Vanessa examine the main argument of Rachel Feder’s thoroughly entertaining exploration of our collective love for Mr. Darcy.  Feder asks an important question:  what effect has loving Mr. Darcy in fiction had on our real lives? Is Feder right that we might have taken the fantasy too far?  This episode is for you if you have ever met a woman (or been a woman…) who is dating a guy that everyone else thinks is a jerk, but YOU understand him, and YOU know he’ll change, and YOU are willing to do the work to transform him. If this sounds eerily familiar, then Rachel Feder’s insightful book might help you understand the psychology at work, and this episode will (hopefully) sell you on checking out or (better yet) buying The Darcy Myth.Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa brush up against the possibility that Longbourne is a haunted house, once again find themselves circling back to questions about female odysseys, and–quite innocently–find themselves porn adjacent. REFERENCESCheck out Rachel Feder's Website for a list of all her works, including her newest book, Taylor Swift By the Book:  The Literature Behind the Lyrics, from Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets (2024), co-authored with Tiffany TatreauMarriage: a History by Stephanie Coontz can be purchased here.For a deep dive into Jane Eyre, check out On Eyre, a special series from Hot and Bothered Podcast, hosted by Vanessa Zoltan & Lauren Sandler.The mention of virginity as a “fettish” is in Virginia Woolf’s collection of lectures, A Room of One’s Own, specifically in the section entitled, “If Shakespeare Had a Sister.” You can purchase the entire volume, or there are many pdf versions of the “If Shakespeare Had a Sister” section, like this one from the University of Minnesota @ Duluth.The mention of Clarissa and Pamela are to two novels by 18th century novelist, Samuel Richardson.  Our 5th episode of season 3 is actually about Pamela (1740), and if you’d rather not read it but would still like to know about it, you will find that episode very helpful and fun.  We have not read Clarissa…yet?...it’s about 1,500 pages, so no promises…

Sonja and Vanessa have read a 500 page novel for you (or a measly 400 pages, depending on which edition you read).  You’re welcome!  It’s about a 15 year old girl named Pamela, who is the most beautiful woman on earth (according to everyone in the novel), and she’s a servant girl who is “accomplished” (in Pride and Prejudice fashion…even to the extent that everyone marvels at how well she carves a chicken–now that’s an accomplished young lady, dear listeners).  Pamela finds herself the lust-and-later-love object of her decade-older employer, Mr. B—-, and there are comical cross-dressing scenes, hidden letters, mugged parsons, and our “poor, dear Pamela” jumps out of at least one window.Come along for this entertaining romp through this famous early novel that was the first English BEST SELLER in history, consider the ideas threading through it that are (sadly) still very much with us today, and the surprising prequel vibe it has for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen might have perfected the enemies-to-lovers plot…but she didn’t invent it, and here’s a book she for sure read.  See what you think!Along the way, we meet a “scribbling” woman (over a hundred years before Nathaniel Hawthorne coined the expression), link The Breakfast Club to 18th century literature, and Sonja and Vanessa wonder why they didn’t just call the podcast “Idle Sluts in the House.” REFERENCESDr. Octavia Cox, of Oxford University, has several wonderful educational videos about 18th century literature, and this one on the success of Pamela in 1740 is incredibly informative with helpful visuals.More information on Dr. Octavia Cox can be found here.Here is a picture of the original title page of Samuel Richardson’s novel, Pamela.Here is a picture of the original title page of Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, 1722.Tate Museum's 4 Paintings by Joseph Highmore of scenes from Pamela, including Mr. B– disguised as a drunk maid sitting in a corner, spying on Pamela as she undresses.Gaze here upon the portrait of Samuel Richardson that Vanessa printed out and framed to have before us in the studio as the pod was recorded so we remembered to be kind to Sam.