“A ruthlessly funny, smart, and relentlessly on-point takedown of modern misogyny….Doyle’s debut book places her on the A-list of contemporary feminist writers.” -Publishers Weekly starred reviewĭead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power (Melville House, 2019)įemale monstrosity is threaded throughout every myth you’ve heard, and some you haven’t: carnivorous mermaids, Furies tearing men apart with razor-sharp claws, leanan sídhe enchanting mortal men and draining the souls from their bodies.

“ Fiercely brilliant, must-read.Doyle has dug deeply into the garbage that the media peddles about women.Doyle's book moves the needle.” -Elle “Fantastic.Trainwreck will very likely join the feminist canon.” -The Atlantic Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to “behave.” But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself. She’s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying, “crack is whack,” and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. She’s everywhere once you start looking for her: the trainwreck. ( Amazon.) ( Barnes & Noble.) ( IndieBound.)

“Some people take a scalpel to the heart of media culture Sady Doyle brings a bone saw, a melon baller, and a machete.Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, Fear… and Why (Melville House, 2016) In a dark and dangerous world, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers asks women to look to monsters for the ferocity we all need to survive. They also speak to the primal threat of a woman who takes back her power. These monsters embody patriarchal fear of women, and illustrate the violence with which men enforce traditionally feminine roles. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein’s “domineering” mother Augusta exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, who starved herself to death to quell her demons author Mary Shelley, who dreamed her dead child back to life. Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. This “witty, engaging analysis” of female monsters in pop culture offers “provocative and incisive” commentary on society’s fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her)

Dead blondes and bad mothers