Women's Fiction From 1945 to Today

by Philips, Deborah

• ISBN13: 9781441104267
• ISBN10: 1441104267
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-08-14
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Now in its second edition and with new chapters covering such texts as Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and 'yummy mummy' novels such as Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It, this is a wide-ranging survey of popular women's fiction from 1945 to the present.

Examining key trends in popular writing for women in each decade, Women's Fiction offers case study readings of major British and American writers. Through these readings, the book explores how popular texts often neglected by feminist literary criticism have charted the shifting demands, aspirations and expectations of women in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Author Biography

Deborah Philips is Professor of Literature and Cultural History at the University of Brighton, UK. Her books include Fairground Attractions (2012), The Trojan Horse (2013) with Garry Whannel and Brave New Causes (1999) with Ian Haywood.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments \ 1. Introduction \ 2. What Did Women Want?: Post-War Masculinity in the Woman's Novel of the 1950s \ 3. 'Mothers Without Partners': the Single Mother Narrative of the 1960s \ 4. She's Leaving Home: the 'College Girl' Narrative of the 1970s \ 5. Shopping as Work: the Sex and Shopping Novel of the 1980s \ 6. Keeping the Home Fires Burning: the Aga Saga of the 1990s \ 7. Shopping for Men: the Single Woman Narrative \ 8. Resentful Daughters: the Post-Feminist Novel? \ 9. Shopping for Meaning: The Spiritual Quest \ 10. Having It All: Work and Motherhood \ Afterword \ Bibliography \ Index.