Women and Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing

KELLY LYNCH REAMES is Assistant Professor, Western Kentucky University, USA.

• Introduction 'Sisters in Sin' : William Faulkners's Requiem for a Nun 'The Image of you, True or False, Last[s] a Lifetime' : Lillian Hellman's Memories of Black Women 'The Very House of Difference' : Audre Lorde's Autobiographies 'Just This Side of Colored' : Ellen Foster and Night Talk 'Girl from a Whole Other Race' : Toni Morrison's 'Recitatif,' Beloved, and Paradise Conclusion

'This is a solid study of 'the complexities of interracial friendship' among black and white women in a variety of American literary texts. Reames presents a sobering argument about the lasting legacies of racial antagonism as well as the ways in which a range of American women writers work to critique and reimagine ideas and practices of racial difference.' - Eric Gary Anderson, George Mason University'In this important new work, Reames presents cogent analysis of relationships between African American and white women, both in and through American literature.By examining an impressiverange of texts, Reames demonstrates how the tensions between black women and white women cannot begin tobesolved until white women work to become more aware of their whiteness.By interrogating literary depictions of relationships between black and white women, she exploreshow thoughtful readers - especially white feminists - can learn to raise their consciousnesses as they read works by and about black women and thus seek to prevent a reinscription of racist hegemony.While engaging her predecessors, Reames's original perspectives provide a needed addition to scholarship on race and gender dynamics in American literature.' - Kristine Yohe, Associate Professor of English, Northern Kentucky University