Review:: Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion by Michelle Dean

Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion  (April 4, 2018 / Grove Press)

Summary: 

The ten brilliant women who are the focus of Sharp came from different backgrounds and had vastly divergent political and artistic opinions. But they all made a significant contribution to the cultural and intellectual history of America and ultimately changed the course of the twentieth century, in spite of the men who often undervalued or dismissed their work.

These ten women—Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm—are united by what Dean calls “sharpness,” the ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit. Sharp is a vibrant depiction of the intellectual beau monde of twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties at night gave out to literary slugging-matches in the pages of the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books. It is also a passionate portrayal of how these women asserted themselves through their writing in a climate where women were treated with extreme condescension by the male-dominated cultural establishment.

Mixing biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is a celebration of this group of extraordinary women, an engaging introduction to their works, and a testament to how anyone who feels powerless can claim the mantle of writer, and, perhaps, change the world.

My Review: 

A great compilation of admirable and witty women! Each of the book's chapters focus on one of 10 sharp women (listed above) and the chapters build on one another through the women's relationships to each other--almost a "six degrees of separation" type of setup.  I felt like I got 10 mini-biographies in one with this book. Author Michelle Dean takes care to focus on both the support these women did and did not receive from society, their male and female peers, and the public. She also dispelled some myths while also providing new information about each woman. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a non-fiction read divided into easily digestible chapters. This would make a great gift for the sharp female graduates on your list.