Insightful and powerfully affecting, Dead Women Talking deepens our understanding of how the dead remain a vital presence and social force in American life and literature. -- Kristin Hutchins Women's Studies Norman examines an original, intriguing phenomenon in American literature-stories with deceased female characters... The study is well researched and offers an array of critical approaches. This important contribution to the study of American fiction should endure for some time. Choice Dead women have been speaking out in literature for a long time. What Norman does with this book is to bring our attention to them as a group so that we might bring the concerns of these women to the forefront of our discussions. -- Dana Benge Rocky Mountain Review