Writers Recommend: Victoria Smith

The author of HAGS talks us through some of her favourite feminist literature

It’s been a while since we’ve had one of my Writers Recommend series and it seemed there was no better time than this week when I am preparing to hold The Book Room’s first writing retreat at The Rook Retreat.

Our first guest author is Victoria Smith, author of HAGS.

Regular followers of this newsletter will remember that in March The Book Room had an exclusive promotion from the publishers to give away free HAGS badges with each copy. I still have a few left if anyone would like one. You can order HAGS here.

Ahead of the writing retreat (of which I believe there may be still one place left for latecomers), I asked Victoria if she would share with us the four favourite works of feminist fiction or non-fiction that inspired her own work, or those which she longs to press into other people’s hands. Her list is fascinating and I have already ordered one of them myself.

So without further ado, here they are…

ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT by Jeannette Winterson

Victoria says: “I first read this book in my late teens, then again when I was in my twenties (using it as teaching material in a German secondary school), then more recently. I think right now – particularly as politics becomes extremely polarised – it would be easy to characterise it as ‘brave heroine suffers but eventually moves beyond her sad, bigoted community’ (which is, to a degree, how I saw it in my teens, very much identifying with the narrator, Jess). There’s some real fury in it, but it’s actually much more conciliatory than that, something achieved by the very unique blend of humour and pathos. Jess’s mother is at once cold and grotesque, yet there’s empathy for her, even at the end. It’s an incredible achievement for a book to be so brave and powerful in its politics, yet so tender.”

You can buy ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT here.

WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys

Victoria says: “I studied this for A Level English, alongside Jane Eyre. I am most definitely Team Madwoman in the Attic. The word ‘gaslighting’ is perhaps overused, but this is a wonderful study in its progression, as the reader gradually witnesses the net closing in around Antoinette. You already know what happens to her – even those who haven’t read Charlotte Bronte know of Bertha Mason’s reputation – and by the end of Rhys’ version, perhaps Bertha/Antoinette is ‘mad’. But what else could she have said or done? I’ve read it several times, each time trying to find the ‘out’, reminded of situations and conversations where I, too, have foreseen the ‘crazy woman’ trap opening before me and not been able to sidestep it. The subtlety of the writing – this is what happened, this is who I am – is far more powerful, I think, than any direct defence of the madwoman as sane.” 

You can buy WIDE SARGASSO SEA here.

OF WOMAN BORN: MOTHERHOOD AS EXPERIENCE AND INSTITUTION by Adrienne Rich

Victoria says: “This was first published in 1976, but I didn’t read it until 2015, when I was 40 and pregnant with my third child. I grew up with various vague assumptions about second-wave feminism and motherhood (either they ignored it, or they were biological essentialists who wanted to keep women trapped in a nurturing role). My own understanding of feminism was as of something that would permit me to avoid the fate of my mother’s generation. What I hadn’t realised – and didn’t until I read Rich – was that this is what many women of that generation had believed, too. It was profoundly eye-opening to me to see the way in which blaming the women who went before you for their apparent acquiescence in norms which you wish to avoid yourself is part of what keeps these norms in place.” 

You can buy OF WOMAN BORN here.

IN HER NATURE: HOW WOMEN BREAK BOUNDARIES IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS by Rachel Hewitt

Victoria says: “This is a remarkable mix of memoir and history, charting the experiences of nineteenth-century female runners and walkers, and the way in which women’s access to open space has been controlled by men. Hewitt compares the advances and regressions to the experiences of women today, when street harassment and sexual violence not only limit our freedom of movement, but influence how we experience our own bodies. Quietly furious, and deeply moving, it shows how progress for women is not linear, and that our claims on the right to move – and to write and speak – are still viewed by some as conditional, to be withdrawn the moment we are deemed to be going too far.”

You can buy IN HER NATURE here.

Thank you so much to Victoria for recommending these brilliant reads, hopefully in the future (when I am not on a book deadline) Victoria and I shall get together for a chat about them which I will post on You Tube. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed reading her recommendations, and please share this post so others can enjoy it too.

• This posts will always be free to read but there are various ways that you can support me while I wait to find a place to reopen my physical shop. Firstly, you can buy a gift subscription for £5 a month, which not only shows your appreciation of my writing, but grants you 10% off purchases in my online shop with your own unique discount code.

You can also order from THE BOOK ROOM, you might not find something you want here in this newsletter, or even in the online shop itself, but you can send me a CUSTOM ORDER and I can usually get any book to you within 48 hours.

You also might be interested in joining one of THE BOOK ROOM’S WRITING RETREATS. Places are booking up on our next three author-led retreats and I’m thrilled that we are hosting incredible authors like Victoria Smith, Jennifer Saint and Monique Roffey. Find out more about each retreat and book here.

And if you haven’t got any money and you still want to support, then sharing this newsletter on your social media accounts might just persuade some others to sign up as subscribers or buy a book themselves!