Writing in an Age of Silence - Hardcover

Paretsky, Sara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844671224 ISBN 13: 9781844671229

Publisher: Verso, 2007

Synopsis

In Writing in an Age of Silence, Sara Paretsky explores the traditions of political and literary dissent that have informed her life and work, against the unparalleled repression of free speech and thought in the USA today.

In tracing the writer’s difficult journey from silence to speech, Paretsky turns to her childhood youth in rural Kansas, and brilliantly evokes Chicago—the city with which she has become indelibly associated—from her arrival during the civil-rights struggle in the mid-1960s to her most extraordinary literary creation, the south-side detective V I Warshawski. Paretsky traces the emergence of V I Warshawski from the shadows of the loner detectives that stalk the mean streets of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler’s novels, and in the process explores American individualism, the failure of the American dream and the resulting dystopia.

Both memoir and meditation, Writing in an Age of Silence is a beautiful, compelling exploration of the writer’s art and daunting responsibility in the face of the assault on US civil liberties post-9/11.

About this title

About the Author

Sara Paretsky is the author of the bestselling V.I. Warshawski novels, including, most recently, Bleeding Kansas. Paretsky is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers’ Association. She lives in Chicago.

Reviews

In this brief, potent memoir, bestselling novelist Paretsky (Fire Sale) proves as sharp and straight shooting as V.I. Warshawski, the female private investigator she's made famous in 12 novels. Carefully sketching her conjoined lives as an artist and activist who cut her political teeth on the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s, she paints a moving portrait of herself as an engaged intellectual looking to make a substantive and life-affirming mark on society. Paretsky can be pointed in recollecting childhood influences—including Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and her realization that the only woman writer taught in school was named "George"—and how they play into silences faced now by writers and citizens. Paretsky is also passionate about the religious right and the Patriot Act, but her views on how the current administration treats women's sexual and reproductive freedoms are among the most powerful. "The junior Mr. Bush has given free rein to corporate venality," she asserts, " but he is adamant about controlling the sexual behavior of women both at home and abroad. Little girls, you must get Daddy's permission for what you want to do in the privacy of your bedroom." Paretsky's informed views illuminate her fiction and add dimension to discussions of the political responsibilities of the artist. (May)
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Fans of Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski series won't be surprised by her passion for social justice--in each novel, the sleuth tackles a political or social issue in addition to the crime at hand--and they're not likely to blame her for wanting to put the issues front and center. Despite having a popular series as a soapbox, Paretsky has much more to say. Derived from speeches and essays given and published elsewhere (an early version of chapter 5, "Truth, Lies, and Duct Tape," appeared in Booklist as "Writing, Speech, and Silence"), this slim volume covers a lot of ground: early lack of encouragement; participation in the civil-rights movement in Chicago; women's liberation and the origins of V. I. Warshawski; the social relevance of crime fiction; and the forces, from corporate enterprise to government censorship, conspiring to silence meaningful free speech. Written with graceful economy,Writing in an Age of Silence is an urgent cry for dissent and a powerful reminder that liberties taken for granted may someday not be granted at all. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844671224
• ISBN 13: 9781844671229
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 138