The death of John Updike in January sparked much talk about the end of the golden age of American fiction. In her timely new history of American women writers, A Jury of her Peers, Elaine Showalter challenges the assumption that the most important writers are male.
She explains why American women writers lag so far behind their English sisters in public estimation, and tells the colourful stories of some of the earliest storytellers - women such as Mary Rowlandson, captured by Narragansett Indians in the 17th century. She points out the writers you should read, and those you needn't bother with. Finally she names her four must-reads for anyone who wants to know about women in American literature.
