On Domestic Books
Persephone Books is a small publisher which republishes books by "unjustly neglected women writers", largely from the first half of the 20th century and on domestic themes. They have a mail-order business and the cutest imaginable shop in Bloomsbury. Seriously, check this out.
I bet it smells really good.
The books are pleasing little objects - they all have dove gray covers and colorful endpapers printed with a fabric pattern contemporary to the book. They come with a matching bookmark, too. You can sign up (even in the US!) for their catalog/magazine, which has reviews, short stories, editorials, and an events list that tells you when you can go to this fucking adorable shop on Lamb's Conduit Street for tea and cake my god I think I just broke out in Union Jack shaped hives. Tea. And. Cake.
So I get this sweet little object twice a year and twice a year I feel guilty for not ordering their books - I ordered a few several years back, and they're all phenomenal, but it is not cheap to get your reading fix shipped from Lamb's Conduit Street, Bloomsbury. I mean it, every single one of these books that I've read thus far is genuinely great. Recommend-to-everyone great. Not-shut-up-about great. So I've decided to interlibrary loan my way through their catalogue, which as of right now runs to 128 books, and do a little blog about it (yes, now that nobody blogs anymore and everyone's on Instagram. Evidently there are book themed Instagrams and I really don't understand that.) I'm sure I'm not the first to do this, but surely there's room for another one.
But before I start I want to talk a bit about that word up there. Domestic.
Even people who write about "domestic fiction" seem to apologize a bit for the word. (Oh my god what if I'm accidentally middlebrow? Would anybody tell me?!) Film Crit Hulk linked to an excellent essay by Lily Lili Loofbourow, "The Male Glance", from the Spring 2018 Virginia Quarterly Review, that I think you should stop and read right now.
"The male glance is the opposite of the male gaze. Rather than linger lovingly on the parts it wants most to penetrate, it looks, assumes, and moves on. It is, above all else, quick. "
Men don't write "domestic" books. If a man writes about being a parent, a caregiver, or a husband that's Literary Fiction and it's important. If a woman writes about it, it's domestic fiction if she did it in 1928 and chick lit if she did it yesterday and a beach read if she did it in Charleston, and it's about trivial shit. Fluff. You know, like having babies and working at your job and sustaining your lifelong friendships and wiping your incontinent mother's ass. Not important things like going to war or playing a really thematically important baseball game. (If a man writes in detail about what it's like to become his mother's intimate caretaker after all the years she took care of him, he's not just a great writer, he's a martyr AND our Great American Novelist. So vulnerable! I bet his prose is lucid, or maybe muscular. Probably not limpid though. Limpid is for girls.)
There's an interview with Nicola Beauman, head of Persephone, from German Vogue published in this most recent issue of the Persephone Biannually that's in my bathroom right now. She's quoted on the unifying elements of the books she publishes: "it is the theme of domesticity. That has nothing to do with washing up or ironing, it is about life at home, the everyday life of many, many women. It is an ordinary world in which the extraordinary plays a major role." Even the people who love and champion these books seem a little... defensive? I'd say "why, what's up with that?" but it's not like I don't know - society has already glanced at them and decided they can't possibly be important. If it's only about women's lives, it's only for women (and not really serious women, anyway. Serious women read Jonathan Franzen and Philip Roth because they write books of consequence. You can tell because everybody in them is an asshole.) Persephone publishes satire, memoir, tragedy, even cookbooks - but they're all "domestic", meaning they tend to be woman-centered and about people's lives, so they're safely dismissed. I don't even like the term but I don't know a better one that works as a descriptor, so I'll resentfully call them my Feral Books, and I look forward to telling you about them.
I bet it smells really good.
The books are pleasing little objects - they all have dove gray covers and colorful endpapers printed with a fabric pattern contemporary to the book. They come with a matching bookmark, too. You can sign up (even in the US!) for their catalog/magazine, which has reviews, short stories, editorials, and an events list that tells you when you can go to this fucking adorable shop on Lamb's Conduit Street for tea and cake my god I think I just broke out in Union Jack shaped hives. Tea. And. Cake.
So I get this sweet little object twice a year and twice a year I feel guilty for not ordering their books - I ordered a few several years back, and they're all phenomenal, but it is not cheap to get your reading fix shipped from Lamb's Conduit Street, Bloomsbury. I mean it, every single one of these books that I've read thus far is genuinely great. Recommend-to-everyone great. Not-shut-up-about great. So I've decided to interlibrary loan my way through their catalogue, which as of right now runs to 128 books, and do a little blog about it (yes, now that nobody blogs anymore and everyone's on Instagram. Evidently there are book themed Instagrams and I really don't understand that.) I'm sure I'm not the first to do this, but surely there's room for another one.
But before I start I want to talk a bit about that word up there. Domestic.
Even people who write about "domestic fiction" seem to apologize a bit for the word. (Oh my god what if I'm accidentally middlebrow? Would anybody tell me?!) Film Crit Hulk linked to an excellent essay by Lily Lili Loofbourow, "The Male Glance", from the Spring 2018 Virginia Quarterly Review, that I think you should stop and read right now.
"The male glance is the opposite of the male gaze. Rather than linger lovingly on the parts it wants most to penetrate, it looks, assumes, and moves on. It is, above all else, quick. "
Men don't write "domestic" books. If a man writes about being a parent, a caregiver, or a husband that's Literary Fiction and it's important. If a woman writes about it, it's domestic fiction if she did it in 1928 and chick lit if she did it yesterday and a beach read if she did it in Charleston, and it's about trivial shit. Fluff. You know, like having babies and working at your job and sustaining your lifelong friendships and wiping your incontinent mother's ass. Not important things like going to war or playing a really thematically important baseball game. (If a man writes in detail about what it's like to become his mother's intimate caretaker after all the years she took care of him, he's not just a great writer, he's a martyr AND our Great American Novelist. So vulnerable! I bet his prose is lucid, or maybe muscular. Probably not limpid though. Limpid is for girls.)
There's an interview with Nicola Beauman, head of Persephone, from German Vogue published in this most recent issue of the Persephone Biannually that's in my bathroom right now. She's quoted on the unifying elements of the books she publishes: "it is the theme of domesticity. That has nothing to do with washing up or ironing, it is about life at home, the everyday life of many, many women. It is an ordinary world in which the extraordinary plays a major role." Even the people who love and champion these books seem a little... defensive? I'd say "why, what's up with that?" but it's not like I don't know - society has already glanced at them and decided they can't possibly be important. If it's only about women's lives, it's only for women (and not really serious women, anyway. Serious women read Jonathan Franzen and Philip Roth because they write books of consequence. You can tell because everybody in them is an asshole.) Persephone publishes satire, memoir, tragedy, even cookbooks - but they're all "domestic", meaning they tend to be woman-centered and about people's lives, so they're safely dismissed. I don't even like the term but I don't know a better one that works as a descriptor, so I'll resentfully call them my Feral Books, and I look forward to telling you about them.
This is fantastic! Cannot wait to read more and check out some books!
ReplyDeleteEnjoying this blog!
ReplyDeleteIt does smell really good. Hyacinths last time I was there.
ReplyDeleteGreat article but was the f-word REALLY necessary? At a time when everyone and her dog is offended by everything I'd like to put in a word for those of us offended by four letter words. And please don't tell me I don't have to read it: that's like telling women if they don't want to be raped they should stay home nights.
ReplyDeleteNot necessary, but a choice I made. You're perfectly within your rights to be offended by anything you like. You are definitely not going to like my "Someone at a Distance" post, I'll warn you.
DeleteO.K. I'll go back to reading dovegreyreader, then:)
Delete