Marilyn French – författare

A novel of second love between Americans abroad—“a monumental achievement” from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women’s Room (Cosmopolitan).  Dolores Durer, a divorced English professor and the mother of two adult children, has sworn off love after a series of disastrous affairs. Electronics executive Victor Morrissey is in England to open a branch office. He has four children and is unhappily married. From the moment they meet—on a train—their connection is instant and passionate. The two Americans abroad embark on an affair that will have consequences in both their lives. Each carries baggage. Dolores is haunted by family tragedy; Victor is tormented by marital estrangement. Driven by an impending sense of urgency, knowing their time together is finite, they struggle to transform their pasts into a hopeful future. 

Famed feminist Marilyn French’s life-affirming saga celebrates the love and sacrifices of four generations of Polish-American mothers and daughters. With Bella Dabrowski close to death, her daughter Anastasia, who has reinvented herself as Stacey Stevens, is trying to penetrate the longstanding barriers between them to understand the woman who gave her life.   Through the eyes of Stacey, a divorced, feminist New York photographer, we get to know Bella, a remarkable woman, wife, and mother. The daughter of Polish immigrants, Bella, who renamed herself Belle, clawed her way out of poverty and settled into a middle-class existence.   Shifting perspectives between the two women, the reader is drawn into Belle’s life through the lean years of the Depression as well as Stacey’s recollections of her youthful marriage, a lesbian affair, and her tempestuous relationship with her own daughter, Arden. From the groundbreaking author of The Women’s Room, Her Mother’s Daughter explores past and present to reveal the complex, indestructible bonds between daughters and mothers.

New York Times–bestselling author of The Women’s Room: While a man lies in the hospital, his four daughters struggle to make peace with him—and one another. In a Massachusetts hospital, as distinguished presidential adviser Stephen Upton lies mortally ill, four women gather at his lavish mansion. Half sisters Elizabeth, Mary, Alex, and Ronnie have painful and poignant memories of their childhoods—and of their father. Born to different mothers, the sisters haven’t seen one another in years. As Upton hovers between life and death, his daughters begin to open up about the man they love and hate. They share their stories and discover the terrible secret that binds them all together . . . the secret they kept even as they fought for Upton’s approval and affection. As they struggle to make peace with their father—and with one another—the women finally begin to heal and forgive the sins of the past.   Moving and eloquent, Our Father is a testament to the power of female bonding. 

An extraordinary memoir on facing death . . . and choosing lifeWhere there’s a will . . .Given a death sentence after being diagnosed with cancer, Marilyn French fought back . . . and won. A Season in Hell is the story of her battle to survive against overwhelming odds.A smoker for almost half a century, French was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the summer of 1992. She was given a year to live, but five years later, she was, incredibly, cancer free. In this inspiring account, French chronicles her journey, from her reaction to the devastating news, to the chemotherapy that almost killed her, to her miraculous return to life following a two-week coma. She shares her feelings on apathetic doctors, the vital importance of a support network of friends and family, and how her near-death experience forever altered her perspective and priorities.

An unapologetically romantic novel about a woman who finds love in middle ageAfter four marriages and numerous affairs, famed author Hermione Beldame doesn’t expect real life to play out like her bestselling romance novels. So she’s stunned when she meets George Johnson at a party and the Louisville journalist sweeps her off her feet. The handsome, seductive younger man is the epitome of southern charm. Suddenly, Hermione, who never believed in happily-ever-after, is passionately, obsessively in love.During this game-changing summer, as she shuttles between Manhattan and the Hamptons, Hermione—born Elsa Schutz—looks back on her life and the choices that brought her to this crossroad. Consumed by an erotic longing she’s never felt before, she sets out on a quest to understand her past, her present, and her future, set in motion by this maddening, elusive, ultimately unknowable man.  

An extraordinary memoir on facing death . . . and choosing lifeWhere there’s a will . . .Given a death sentence after being diagnosed with cancer, Marilyn French fought back . . . and won. A Season in Hell is the story of her battle to survive against overwhelming odds.A smoker for almost half a century, French was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the summer of 1992. She was given a year to live, but five years later, she was, incredibly, cancer free. In this inspiring account, French chronicles her journey, from her reaction to the devastating news, to the chemotherapy that almost killed her, to her miraculous return to life following a two-week coma. She shares her feelings on apathetic doctors, the vital importance of a support network of friends and family, and how her near-death experience forever altered her perspective and priorities.

Three powerful novels about family and the female experience from the multimillion-selling author of The Women’s Room. A collection of three works of fiction by a New York Times–bestselling author who “write[s] about the inner lives of women with insight and intimacy” (The New York Times Book Review).  Her Mother’s Daughter: In this life-affirming saga that celebrates the love and sacrifices of four generations of Polish-American mothers and daughters, Stacey, a divorced feminist New York photographer, struggles to understand the experience of her mother, a child of Polish immigrants who clawed her way out of poverty and settled into a middle-class existence—while at the same time managing her tempestuous relationship with her own daughter, Arden.  Our Father: As distinguished presidential adviser Stephen Upton lies mortally ill in a Massachusetts hospital, four women gather at his lavish mansion. Half sisters Elizabeth, Mary, Alex, and Ronnie have painful and poignant memories of their childhoods—and their dying father. They haven’t seen each other in years, but as they open up to each other about the man they both love and hate, they will discover the terrible secret that binds them all together.  The Bleeding Heart: Dolores Durer, a divorced professor and mother of two adult children, has sworn off love after a series of disastrous affairs. Meanwhile, electronics executive Victor Morrissey is in England to open a branch office. He has four children and is unhappily married. When Victor and Dolores meet—on a train—their connection is instant and passionate. In this New York Times–bestselling novel about love and marriage, two Americans abroad embark on an affair that will have consequences in both their lives.  

The first volume of the New York Times–bestselling author’s monumental and unprecedented history: “Consistently thought-provoking” (The New York Review of Books).   The internationally celebrated author of The Women’s Room, Marilyn French spent over fifteen years with a team of researchers and prominent historians examining women’s lives and activities in civilizations and societies spanning the ages.   Beginning in prehistory, Origins moves on to examine women’s lives in ancient Egypt, China, India, Peru, Mexico, Greece, and Rome. In her reconstruction of wars, laws, and other activities affecting both women and men, French also traces the worldviews underpinning them. She also depicts how women’s relationship to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam changed for good and bad over the centuries.   “She backs up even her more controversial theories with an impressive accumulation of academically accepted historical, anthropological and sociological sources . . . Written in concise, understated language, this is a significant addition to literature on women’s studies and history.” —Publishers Weekly

“Filled with fascinating detail . . . this second volume of French’s massive and valuable work is an example of scholarship and clear vision.” —Publishers Weekly   This volume of New York Times–bestselling author Marilyn French’s monumental history analyzes and evaluates the lives of women in societies around the world between feudal times and the French Revolution. Drawing upon fifteen years of collaboration with a team of researchers and prominent historians, the volume opens with fascinating chapters comparing medieval Europe and Japan, disparate cultures which nevertheless shared traditions of male dominated aggression and competitiveness.   French then shows how, in Europe, this tradition led to colonialism and imperialism, and the horrific subjugation of indigenous societies, just as women were subjugated in the conquerors’ home countries. As French makes clear in this impassioned women’s history, only with the French Revolution did the political force women exerted powerfully change the course of history.   “French gives us grand theory at its best, wading through copious amounts of scholarly data on the histories of civilizations and offering up, in readable prose, an important synthesis.” —Library Journal

The conclusion of the “remarkable” four-volume history by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women’s Room (Publishers Weekly).   In the twentieth century, women became a force for change, in part through suffrage, and in part through mass organizing. This final volume of Marilyn French’s wide-ranging survey offers a vibrant history of multiple political revolutions as well as the century’s horrors—including genocides and the atom bomb. It ends with a thoughtful investigation into the various indigenous feminist movements throughout the world and asks what these peaceful revolutions might augur for the future.   Eschewing easy answers, French suggests that the defining moral moments of the twenty-first century should, and will, build from a global human rights agenda.

From the New York Times–bestselling author: “A rare find: a page-turning, can’t-put-it-down history text.” —Library Journal   Writing about what she calls the “most cheering period in female history,” Marilyn French recounts how nineteenth-century women living under imperialism, industrialization, and capitalism nonetheless organized for their own education, a more equitable wage, and the vote.   Focusing on the United States, Great Britain, and countries in Africa, French argues that capitalism’s success depended on the exploitation and enslavement of huge numbers, including women, but the act of working outside the home alongside other women, rather than in isolation, provided women with the possibility of organizing for emancipation.   “The third volume of her remarkable four-volume survey . . . fascinating insight and detail.” —Publishers Weekly

A girl comes of age in the radical 1960s in this “beautifully written” novel by the groundbreaking author of The Women’s Room (Kate Mosse).   It’s 1968 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jess Leighton, the daughter of a temperamental painter and a proto-feminist Harvard professor, is struggling to make sense of her world amid racial tensions, Vietnam War protests, anti-government rage, her own burgeoning sexuality, and bad relationships. With more options than her mother’s generation, but no role model for creating the life she desires, Jess experiments with sex and psychedelic drugs as she searches for happiness on her own terms.   In the midst of joining and fleeing a commune, growing organic vegetables, and operating a sustainable restaurant, Jess grapples with the legacy of her mother’s generation while building a future for herself, and for the postmodern woman. “French’s meticulous and affecting tale of the forging of one woman’s conscience encompasses thoughtful portraits of ‘love children,’ from peace activists to members of unconventional families, and a forthright critique of the counterculture that puts today’s wars, struggles for equality, and environmental troubles into sharp perspective” (Booklist).

ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AND BESTSELLING NOVELS OF THE MODERN FEMINIST MOVEMENT 'It was about the need to change things from top to bottom; it was a declaration of independence' OBSERVER 'The first and last international bestseller of the women's movement' GUARDIAN 'They said this book would change lives - and it certainly changed mine' JENNI MURRAY, BBC RADIO 4 A landmark in feminist literature, The Women's Room is a biting social commentary of a world gone silently haywire. Written in the 1970s but with profound resonance today, this is a modern allegory that offers piercing insight into the social norms accepted blindly and revered so completely.It follows the transformation of Mira Ward and her circle as the women's movement begins to have an impact on their lives. A biting social commentary on an emotional world gone silently haywire, The Women's Room is a modern classic that offers piercing insight into the social norms accepted so blindly and revered so completely. Marilyn French questions those accepted norms and poignantly portrays the hopeful believers looking for new truths.

In 1992, Marilyn French was told she had one year to live. A smoker of 48 years she was diagnosed as having cancer of the oesophagus, a cancer which is almost always fatal. Five years on, having battled with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, a heart attack and her back breaking, she is very much alive. And - astonishingly - her body shows no sign of cancer. A SEASON IN HELL is a remarkable, unsentimental, life-affirming journey from an indomitable woman who brought the fighting power she has always brought to the war between the sexes, to the war that for a while raged from within her.

Frauen – Auf der Suche nach sich selbstMira, Val, Kyla und ihre Freundinnen begegnen sich 1968 in Harvard. In den braven Fünfzigern zu unterwürfiger Angepasstheit erzogen, rebellieren sie gegen die starren Konventionen, die ihnen Erziehung und Gesellschaft auferlegt haben. Jede von ihnen muss ihren Weg wählen, wenn es darum geht, sich für Familie oder Karriere zu entscheiden, Herausforderungen und Probleme zu bewältigen oder für ihre Rechte zu kämpfen. Und als sie aus den verschiedensten Gründen ihr Dasein als Ehefrau, Hausfrau und Mutter hinter sich lassen, beginnt die Suche nach dem eigenen Leben erst recht."Ein Buch, das Leben verändert" (Fay Weldon)

Eftir nokkrar rangar sjúkdómsgreiningar var Marilyn French loks árið 1992 greind með krabbamein í vélinda. Í þessum endurminningum leiðir hún lesendur í gegnum skelfilega reynslu sína af geisla- og lyfjameðferð og dáinu sem fylgdi í kjölfarið. Enginn bjóst við að hún kæmi aftur til meðvitundar og því síður að hún næði bata. Þrátt fyrir alvarleg veikindi sem hrjáðu hana lengi á eftir tókst henni að lifa af og þótti það ganga kraftaverki næst. Með tilfinningalegri einlægni sökkvir hún sér í eigið líf og sína baráttu við lækna og heilbrigðiskerfið þar sem hún býður greiningum og hrakspám birginn og stígur upp úr áföllunum opnari en nokkru sinni fyrr. Eins og hún segir sjálf: “Dauðinn setur mark sitt á lífið og opnar okkur fyrir nýja sýn á merkingu þess og tilgang”.Marilyn French lauk doktorsprófi í bókmenntum frá Harvard háskóla. Hún hefur skrifað fimm skáldsögur: My Summer with George, Her Mother''s Daughter, The Women''s Room (Kvennaklósettið), The Bleeding Heart og Our Father og auk þess fjögur fræðirit, þ.á.m. The War Against Women og Beyond Power: On Woman, Men and Morals.

This is a seminal three-volume work, that covers the history of women throughout the world, from earliest times to the present. Marilyn French, internationally bestselling author of The Women's Room, has spent over two decades with a team of researchers and historians examining women's roles and activities in various civilizations and societies throughout the ages. The first volume covers women's roles from earliest recorded history to the Dark Ages. Fascinating and thought provoking, this new history of women from one of feminism's leading voices is an important document for our times.