This one’s a funnybook! (Ugh. By a writer for Glamour magazine.)
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Check it out! Two “somebody’s daughter” books made an appearance during this week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory! The book is Train Robber’s Daughter: The Melodramatic Life of Eva Evans, 1876-1970.”
I don’t believe it. She sounds made-up.
The Dusty Bookshelf in Kansas was a veritable cornucopia of “somebody’s wife” books – almost a third of which were totally found by me myself, despite dirty rumors to the contrary.
So MBG schooled me over the definition of “mistress” re: my last post about “Somebody’s Daughter” books, and he’s totally right. I found another one at the library last week that I’m unsure about:
What do you think? Not the emancipator one – I think that one’s valid. But the Hitler one. Does it count? I kind of think “no,” but figured it was close enough to take a picture of, anyway.
Also, another one from the dollar bin from just this evening:
Does this count as one of those “The Somebody’s Wife” books? Honestly, I think I vote no. Because at least “mistress” is some sort of occupation or something, to a greater degree than “daughter,” if not “wife.” “Mistress” implies that she does something, maybe has a talent and a history and a reason for being where she is. Whereas “daughter” just means, “the blank-slate female human being that belongs to this other person over here who has some sort of job or title.” “Wife” I guess you could argue is more of a role or job or has a history attached to it, but I’d probably grumble and only agree because I had to, not because I really believed you were right.
More “Some Dude’s Daughter”/”Some Dude’s Wife” books! Once you start noticing them, they’re suddenly everywhere!
This is one I accidentally bought (and never read) back when I still thought I would actually collect these stupid things.
The Doctor’s Wife is about Annie, a “wife/mother/teacher” who “begins a love affair with bad-boy celebrity painter Simon Haas.” Ah, pfff. Who hasn’t begun a few of those in their younger years? The back of the book boasts that the author “takes on” “abortion, local evangelism, marital disenchantment, and the rifts of social class.” Throw in a ree-ree or two and that’s pretty much the, er, five-item-long trifecta of all that is boring and maudlin in these books.
Another one I bought: The Immigrant’s Daughter.
That guy’s hot for congress!!
I think this is the last of them that I actually own, so the rest are to be found only through my fair game hunting efforts. That’s how I found these, today, at the Providence public library.
I don’t know what The Pilot’s Wife is about, but it’s an Oprah Book Club book, which I’m frankly not going to poop on. She recommends decent stuff. I’m still not going to read it, but I won’t make a giant amount of fun of you if you decide to.
This one, however, I will. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter was the one that I accidentally read, or, at least, read the first 70 or so and then the last three pages of. I’ll give you a hint: the ree-ree baby gets reunited with her mom. Mutha-fuckin-aawwww.
P.S. – You demand to see the back of The Immigrant’s Daughter, you say? I applaud your decision.
Maybe I should read this one.
Job search update: looking up!
Feminist rage update:
First of all, am I allowed to be annoyed at this? I’m pretty sure this is annoying. Ian and I recently signed up for our very first-ever joint bank account. Signing into the online banking system for the first time is kind of a hassle, and one of the things that pops us is this:
This was absolutely positively nothing I had previously set. They just assumed that because I was opening a joint account, I was, one, married, and two, rich enough and Americanized enough to have taken a honeymoon to a different city. Am I overreacting? I may be. I was annoyed at their website even before this little gem popped up.
Other feminist rage news, though:
For about a million years I’ve been annoyed by the trope of naming a novel “The BLANK’S Daughter” or “The BLANK’S Wife” or something like that. It is absolutely 100% the very epitome of defining a woman solely via the men in her life. Especially since, apparently, the whole damn novel is about her! But no! She’s only her father’s daughter, or her husband’s wife. I know, I know, this is kind of a very Women’s Studies 101 type of thing to be annoyed about, but these titles are soooooooo common. And I guess, like with the Bank of America thing, I have another reason to be annoyed at them, anyway: they’re consistently fucking stupid. It’s always dumbass soap opera shit, where, like, it’s 1954 and some lady is pregnant and in love with the black man down the street and her husband is sleeping with his secretary and I assure you, nobody fucking cares, you know?
Anyway. For a while I was planning on beginning a collection of these books. Then I realized I don’t want to actually own them. So then I just figured I’d get them from the library and write long annoyed blog entries about them. But then I read one of them and realized how awful they were. (The one I read was The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, which was, I shit you not, actually made into a Lifetime movie. In this book, it’s 1964 and some lady is pregnant and in love with her husband but then he gives one of her babies away because it’s a ree-ree and I assure you, nobody fucking cares.) So I’m just collecting their photos is all.
Here are a few, taken at the Prov public library and the Borders in the Prov mall:
An older example! This was copyright 1956, I think. Photo taken at a bookstore a block away from where I live.
(I’ve actually gotten all sorts of good stuff in this dollar bin – Johnny Got His Gun and Naked Lunch and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and some other stuff. It’s a very decent dollar bin. I almost bought this.)
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