(Books)

Boss Ladies, Watch Out!

Essays on Women, Sex, and Writing
Routledge University Press, 2002
Order from the publisher, Routledge University Press, or go to Terry Castle’s Page on Amazon.com.

(Reviewers’ comments)

“The truth is outrageous: that’s a principle Terry Castle has proved. She is as sound as she is scandalous. Any educated person can read her essays with profit and pleasure–and with a jaw that is permanently dropped.”–Edmund White, author of City Boy, Genet, The Farewell Symphony, and A Boy’s Own Story


“Brave, learned, sassy, wildly funny, Terry Castle knows heaps about people (and lives) as well as about literature in English. Her writing is full of feeling and wisdom. She’s not only our best Female Literary Critic and One Wise Babe. She’s the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today.”–Susan Sontag


“Terry Castle opens her collection of essays with the question: do women have the right to be literary critics? Or do sex-specific, female literary values discredit their verdicts in the male-dominated world of criticism? In the rest of the essays in Boss Ladies, Watch Out!, Castle, a professor of English at Stanford, argues that the contributions of women to literary analysis have emboldened writers of both sexes and made significant tugs at the swaying pendulum of taste and acceptability. In punchy and vivid prose, Castle covers criticism of the Gothic novel, Sappho, Charlotte Brontë, fin-de-siècle spiritualism, Gertrude Stein and AIDS. She is irreverent and sometimes delightfully impudent toward those who would shush the noisemakers of literary discourse in order to propagate conventional views about sexuality and piety. But her risks are calculated. At one point, for instance, Castle suggests that Jane Austen was lesbian, hinting at a possible ‘homophilic’ craving for her sister. She supports her provocative speculation by arguing that considering such possibilities — even if they make people uncomfortable — is necessary to safeguard frank academic debate. One wonders about the relevance of her inquiries now that the legitimacy of women as critics has been established. However, Castle argues that literary criticism needs its ‘noisemakers and vulgarians as well as its noble and refined types.’ She makes plenty of noise, but without sacrificing substance or refinement along the way”–New York Times


“Literary critic and London Review of Books contributor Terry Castle says, “It’s a sad life one leads as a Female Literary Critic. All that pressure to live up to masculine expectations.” She has penned a challenging and thought-provoking collection of essays that serve as ‘a kind of brief on behalf of female authority,’ entitled Boss Ladies, Watch Out! Essays on Women, Sex and Writing . The book’s first part features longer, somewhat formal, scholarly pieces; the second portion is composed of essays that began as review-articles. The fiery pieces address Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Gertrude Stein, Edmund White and others.”—Publishers’ Weekly


“Castle distinguishes herself with her even-keeled approach…[she] is no pushover when it comes to taking authors to task; she wields a formidable pen indeed. But it’s clear that she criticizes because she cares–she wants female writers and artists and critics to be taken seriously. One of the biggest delights in this collection is Castle’s keen sense of style, no small feat for a writer working in the academic world. In stark contrast to the wordier-than-thou poststructuralist approaches that seem to dominate her field, Castle’s style is gleeful, fair, and erudite without being mired in plodding academic prose. She’s more interested in engaging a text than she is in posturing. Cheers to Terry Castle for making literary criticism fun again.” — Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture


“Is anyone as smart as Terry Castle? I sincerely doubt it! Boss Ladies will appeal to the intellectuals among us who are looking for a bit of brain stimulation.” — Curve: The Bestselling Lesbian Magazine