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We Were Witches

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Buying into the dream that education is the road out of poverty, a teen mom takes a chance on bettering herself, gets on welfare rolls, and talks her way into college. But once she's there, phallocratic narratives permeate every subject, and creative writing professors depend heavily on Freytag's pyramid to analyze life. So Ariel turns to a rich subcultural canon of resistance and failure, populated by writers like Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldua, Tillie Olsen, and Kathy Acker. Wryly riffing on feminist literary tropes, We Were Witches documents the survival of a demonized single mother. She's beset by custody disputes, homophobia, and America's ever-present obsession with shaming strange women into passive citizenship. But even as the narrator struggles to graduate - often the triumphant climax of a dramatic plot - a question uncomfortably lingers. If you're dealing with precarious parenthood, queer identity, and debt, what is the true narrative shape of your experience? Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

©2018 Blackstone Publishing (P)2018 Ariel Gore Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Magic Magical Realism Women's Fiction Fantasy Witchcraft
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Not my normal type read, first couple of chapters almost put me off, then I started to care, then I saw my friends, & the girls I stayed away from in high school. Then I remembered how hard the 80s and 90s were for me, then I realised I had it easy. Thanks.

Stick with it, Worth your while.

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I love the way the author has woven stories of historical women and women in fiction into the telling of her own. Very special book I am grateful she wrote!

Beautifully written, poetic, angry, empowering

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