Saturday, May 9, 2020

Eight novels that celebrate unlikable women

Molly Pohlig graduated from James Madison University with a BA in English, and from University College Dublin with an MA in Film Studies. She is the associate editor for Vogue Knitting magazine, and has written humorous pieces and personal essays for Slate, The Toast, Racked, and The Hairpin. Originally from Virginia, she currently lives in Brooklyn.

The Unsuitable is her first novel.

At Electric Lit Pohlig tagged eight novels that center women who are mean, mad, and miserable, including:
Harriet Said, Beryl Bainbridge

Based on the Parker-Hulme murders (recognizable to modern audiences from the film Heavenly Creatures), Bainbridge’s first novel is about a curious thirteen-year-old with a decidedly nasty side, who ropes her more naive friend into a devious plan to humiliate a middle-aged man. A critic wrote: What repulsive little creatures you have made the two central characters, repulsive almost beyond belief!
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue