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"Writing in an Age of Silence" by Sara Paretsky (Verso, ISBN 1844671224, $22.95)

In her new book Sara Paretsky says "I was a person raised to serve, who came of
age in a time of passion for justice." "Writing in an Age of Silence" is a
writer-coming-into-her-voice memoir in which the author of the pluperfect female
detective VI Warshawski examines how writing assuaged her rage at the social and domestic inequities at work in her world. 

In five essays with titles such as "Dr. King and I", "Wild women out of
Control," or "How I Became a Writer," and my favorite "Truth, Lies and Duct
Tape" Paretsky takes us from her repressive and angry childhood home near
Lawrence, Kansas, to the streets of Chicago during the civil rights marches and
through her experiences in publishing to help us understand her voicelessness. 

Having always turned to fiction for friendship and validation, she says she made
VI "dovetail neatly with the times. My own sense of voicelessness also led me to
see and feel the anguish of the powerless." Tracing the socio-dynamics of
detective fiction pre-VI, and the creation of Sisters in Crime, an organization
that Paretsky helped found, it is clear that she paved the way for many, many
women writers to find their own voices.

Filled with her usual dry wit and biting social commentary, Paretsky's slim
volume is beautifully written and highly recommended.  

Review by Sarah Bagby, May 17, 2007

 

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