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To my surprise, when I looked up, the woman I'd seen in author photos and youtube clips wearing an intelligent gaze and understated knitted things in black or crocodile green, was teetering across the stage on very high heels wearing a neon-blue ruffled lampshade. Oh wait, that was Noelle McCarthy, our chair for the session.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENoelle did a zesty job of taking us through the origins of Faludi's latest book and the book itself. In fact, so focused was she on that topic, that I found myself wondering if someone more noteworthy than I had also complained about how, at her Irvine Welsh session at a recent AWF, she had not seemed to have even read his latest book, having instead much to say about \u003Ci\u003ETrainspotting, \u003C\/i\u003Epublished twenty years before but clearly still in pole position for her -- and probably for most of the audience, come to think of it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESusan Faludi's latest book,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3235234\"\u003EIn the darkroom\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eon the other hand\u003Ci\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Etakes second place to none of her previous work, and surpasses it in personal content and, probably, wide audience interest (although I am now reading one of her books of socio-cultural criticism,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1317831\"\u003EStiffed: the betrayal of the American man\u003C\/a\u003E,\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eand highly recommend it as very readable and fascinating socio-cultural criticism).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere on the stage, with indeed the intelligent gaze I had remembered, and such understated attire that I can't actually remember what it was, she began, \"I had grown up with a father who was an autocrat, the ur-patriarch, physically violent to my mother and their children, in particular, me\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"I had a set idea of who my father was.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf you have read the book or heard about it, you will know what she was leading up to. Many people are surprised by things they learn as adults about their parents, but few are handed as big a surprise as Faludi was, receiving a letter from her father after years of bitter estrangement, announcing that \"I have had enough of living as a man\" and that he was now going to live as a woman, a complete woman, and call me Steffi.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIronically, or perhaps not at all ironically, in her career as a journalist and author, Faludi had written about gender issues, and \"When I knew what was happening with my father I couldn't imagine another way of grappling with it\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat she had to grapple with now, on top of figuring out her relationship with her father, was figuring out who her father really was, on various levels-- personality, gender, and personal history as well, in particular the all-American Steve Faludi's childhood and youth in Hungary as  István Friedman, which included escaping being rounded up and deported as a Jew during World War II. \"I thought I had my father pegged but in fact I knew nothing about her.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere was even, on travelling to Hungary to see her father, who had returned there to live after sex reassignment surgery in Thailand, an aspect relating to the history of Hungary, which was going through a shift in those years from communist to free market, and having to reckon with a very bad past.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThey argued a lot the first year \"about what it means to be a woman\", but being a journalist helped her to set aside her own judgments, and learn to back off, \"which is not my strength\". Journalism, she said, was her \"superhero outfit.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EReading the book, I had a sense of two people circling around each other, guarded, but looking for openings. \"My father took pride in being a trickster, in slipping out of your grasp\", something mirrored in his profession: altering images in the dark room. On her part, Faludi says, \"I am a big believer that you can't shed your history, your past experiences\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EShe encapsulates the thread that runs through her book as \"Is identity something we choose, or is it something we can't escape?\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDoes she have an answer? \"Like all chicken and egg questions, it's both. We can't help but construct our identities on what we've inherited, but at the same time we reconstruct.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003EThe most memorable moment, for me, was the sequence which began with Faludi confessing \"I felt such grief that my father had had to lock herself away so deeply.\" Who hasn't had that feeling, on being finally let in on the secret a close family member or friend has been living with, of seeing the initial indignation at having been left out suddenly swallowed up by sorrow, when the empathy hits home.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt was her father who, on his own, volunteered that she should tell his story in a book. \"You could do it like Hans Christian Andersen, with fairy tales,\" he said. \"In fact\", Faludi pointed out, \"Hans Christian Andersen revealed himself more honestly in his fairy tales than in his autobiographies\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"Hans Christian Andersen's theme is one of transformation; the Ugly Duckling was one of my father's favourites.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"What my father was really inviting me to do was to write the most utmost book I could.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd if your daughter is a journalist known for her straight-shooting, well, what is that going to do to \"My father had been insisting that the past had no relevance, that it could be locked away in a dark room\"?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780008193508\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780008193508\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" data-original-height=\"400\" data-original-width=\"272\" height=\"320\" width=\"217\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6631178966028488274\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2017\/06\/susan-faludi-on-in-darkroom-at-awf-2017.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/6631178966028488274"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/6631178966028488274"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2017\/06\/susan-faludi-on-in-darkroom-at-awf-2017.html","title":"Susan Faludi on \"In the darkroom\" at AWF 2017"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Karen Craig"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/18310967522076681423"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"23","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-WaLn2rFYxqE\/UNvHlimMvBI\/AAAAAAAAABY\/ceYnAw1lZEk\/s220\/The%2BLibrarian.jpg"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-HfT7-qQStF8\/WUi55m_JQbI\/AAAAAAAABoE\/TUxAu1kF-80fFstlKpL23ILEbEnDua2rQCLcBGAs\/s72-c\/Faludi%2BSusan%2B%2528pc%2BSigrid%2BEstrada%2529.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2501884760724421053.post-352652310625981358"},"published":{"$t":"2017-05-10T18:06:00.000+12:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2017-05-19T23:13:14.315+12:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"#aklwritersfest"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Auckland Writer's Festival"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"AWF2017"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Karen"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Roxane Gay"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Bring on the unlikable women, says Roxane Gay!"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/awf.gcdn.nz\/Images\/Assets\/313761\/15\/\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/awf.gcdn.nz\/Images\/Assets\/313761\/15\/\" height=\"213\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003ERoxane Gay (photo: Jay Grabiec)\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003EOne of the pieces I liked best in Roxane Gay's anthology\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2843900\"\u003EBad Feminist\u003C\/a\u003E --\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eyes, that Roxane Gay, the one who will be \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.writersfestival.co.nz\/programmes\/event\/difficult-women-roxane-gay\/332061\/\"\u003Eappearing this month\u003C\/a\u003E at the Auckland Writers Festival, and if you can't make it, you'll be able to read about it here -- is the one called \u003Cb\u003ENot here to make frien\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003Eds\u003C\/b\u003E, subtitled \u003Cb\u003EOn the importance of unlikable female protagonists\u003C\/b\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"U\" is the scarlet letter of our times, says Gay. It's a brilliant metaphor, unlikability as today's most terrible sin (I remember Hunter S. Thompson identifying stupidity as the number one sin of his time, or maybe it was \u003Ci\u003Elooking\u003C\/i\u003E stupid), and for how often it's the female who ends up wearing it, just like Hester with her \"A\" in Nathaniel Hawthorne's \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1010037\"\u003Eclassic tale\u003C\/a\u003E of adultery among the Puritans.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EApparently the unlikablest protagonist of recent times is Amy from\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2662992\"\u003EGone Girl\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003C\/i\u003EThe equally amoral Patrick Bateman from \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1181696\"\u003EAmerican Psycho\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;is nominally unlikable, okay, but no critic is saying he needs to display a big \"U\" on his Valentino shirt. Partly of course it's because he's so much fun to read about, if not to be around, with his \"scathing self-awareness\" (quoting Roxane Gay) that you have to love (speaking for myself-- Gay more pragmatically deems him \"a very interesting man\").\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-OLeyZwA5cig\/WQLRe4r-JpI\/AAAAAAAABgo\/3lMNxXTcCaA8lB8UIEItAMhZgCyDaTpnwCLcB\/s1600\/Patrick%2BBateman.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"151\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-OLeyZwA5cig\/WQLRe4r-JpI\/AAAAAAAABgo\/3lMNxXTcCaA8lB8UIEItAMhZgCyDaTpnwCLcB\/s320\/Patrick%2BBateman.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut it's not just that. How many men in fiction are allowed to get away with murder -- not necessarily literally -- compared to women? Gay is fierce on \"this liking business\" which crops up time and time again with female characters, quoting the term Lionel Shriver used for that combination of approval and affection readers were peeved not to have felt for the narrator of her provocative novel\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1193597\"\u003EWe need to talk about Kevin\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003C\/i\u003EAn ambivalent mother! Horrors!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhy would I want to read about \"likable\" characters, Gay asks. Just the opposite!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\"I want characters to do the things I am afraid to do for fear of making myself more unlikable than I may already be. I want characters to be the most honest of all things -- human.\"\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E(I know - you already want to read the whole essay! And you can, \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/roxanegay\/not-here-to-make-friends-unlikable?utm_term=.agp6BgBo0#.auyoP6P4w\"\u003Eon BuzzFeed\u003C\/a\u003E, where it first appeared, although it's worth getting your hands on the whole anthology.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGay either picked up on a trope whose moment had come (she notes that the novelist Claire Messud had recently asked \"Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert?\" in an\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/pw\/by-topic\/authors\/interviews\/article\/56848-an-unseemly-emotion-pw-talks-with-claire-messud.html\"\u003Einterview in Publishers Weekly\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;about her book\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2721487\"\u003EThe Woman Upstairs\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E), or generated new interest in a phenomenon that I'm thinking goes back at least as far as Euripedes's \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1246570\"\u003EMedea\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003C\/i\u003Ewhich is to say over 2000 years ago. At any rate, it's hard to read around in book culture these days without coming across lists like Book Riot's \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/bookriot.com\/2017\/03\/20\/100-must-read-unlikable-women\/\"\u003E100 Must-Read Books with Unlikable Women\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo far none of them have featured my most-memorable book with an unlikable woman, \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1052582\"\u003EGood Morning Miss Dove\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003C\/i\u003Ea book I read in my formative years, thank you Miss Petit, School Librarian, for the recommendation. You can't be exposed to too many unlikable women -- or, as they were called then, women with \"an independent streak\" -- in your formative years. Actually, having recently reread the book after finding a copy in the Central City Library basement -- a hallowed copy 'presented' to our library by the Blockhouse Bay branch of the Labour Party in 1976 -- \u0026nbsp;it did me good even now.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMiss Dove herself is not a librarian but a geography teacher, a gray-haired, bun-coiffeured institution at Cedar Grove School where she has been known to generations of pupils as \"The terrible Miss Dove\", for reasons you can probably guess, having to do with discipline and expectations. She doesn't want to be anyone's friend. She turns down a proposal of marriage from the Bank President. She refuses to let herself aspire to anything except being strong and useful.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs it turns out, she has other things as well, like gallantry and guts, which her pupils can only dimly perceive, if at all. Some come as a revelation even to herself. The biggest of these is when she wants to say something profound about life, after having learned that hers is at risk, and the words which come out of her mouth are \"I have been happy\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-eKVBk4iN8Ko\/WRKeBNl1T4I\/AAAAAAAABhQ\/nvQbNeQMGVIxo_paZbK2qWrlBpgi9pVSACLcB\/s1600\/The%2Bterrible%2BMiss%2BDove.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"237\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-eKVBk4iN8Ko\/WRKeBNl1T4I\/AAAAAAAABhQ\/nvQbNeQMGVIxo_paZbK2qWrlBpgi9pVSACLcB\/s320\/The%2Bterrible%2BMiss%2BDove.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EGood Morning Miss Dove,\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Edescribed in two of its cover blurbs as a minor classic, was my gateway drug to all those books I've loved with tough old women who make different choices and have a different regard for consequences. Miss Brodie from \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1054141\"\u003EThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;Aunt Augusta from \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1078052\"\u003ETravels with My Aunt\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003C\/i\u003EMrs Moore in \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2218517\"\u003EA Passage to India\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;I wonder if Miss Petit, the gentle, meticulous librarian who put her in my hands, and who is inextricably linked with Miss Dove in my memory, guessed. I think she did.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/352652310625981358\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2017\/05\/bring-on-unlikable-women-says-roxane-gay.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/352652310625981358"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/352652310625981358"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2017\/05\/bring-on-unlikable-women-says-roxane-gay.html","title":"Bring on the unlikable women, says Roxane Gay!"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Karen Craig"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/18310967522076681423"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"23","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-WaLn2rFYxqE\/UNvHlimMvBI\/AAAAAAAAABY\/ceYnAw1lZEk\/s220\/The%2BLibrarian.jpg"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-OLeyZwA5cig\/WQLRe4r-JpI\/AAAAAAAABgo\/3lMNxXTcCaA8lB8UIEItAMhZgCyDaTpnwCLcB\/s72-c\/Patrick%2BBateman.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}}]}});