women

No Female President, But Women-Centered Novels Are Still to Be Read

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When I prepared to write this blog post on November 7, I fully expected the United States to elect its first female president the next day. So I decided my topic would be novels that are very women-centered.

But Hillary Clinton shockingly lost to Donald Trump, and these four things came to mind: 1) Many people dislike what America’s political and corporate elites are doing in this have/have-not country, so Bernie Sanders (or Elizabeth Warren, if she had run) would have had a better chance than Clinton to beat the fake populist Trump. 2) Huge crowd drawer Sanders never had a chance during the primaries because the mainstream media under-covered him or covered him with negative bias, because the supposed-to-have-been-neutral Democratic National Committee backed Clinton, because unelected superdelegates also tipped the scales, etc. 3) Clinton is smart, hard-working, resilient, and experienced, but didn’t fit America’s current anti-elite mood, even as she was slammed with sexism.  😦  4) My topic will still be fiction that’s very women-centered.

(If you want to agree with or dispute my election analysis, please do! I should also mention that my book columns after this one will return to discussing politics only occasionally. But political thoughts in the comments section are always welcome!)

Back to this week’s literary topic: So many novels — and not just thrillers — are male-oriented that it’s interesting when things get less testosterone-y. Books focusing mostly on women are often more subtle, more nuanced, more psychological, more emotionally satisfying, etc. — though it’s of course hard to totally generalize.

One example of a very women-centered novel is Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, which I happened to read during this past election week. The elegantly written, heartbreaking book features three generations of women from the same extended family who live in virtual isolation in the Pacific Northwest.

There are also novels that are women-centered mainly because they feature multiple sisters — for instance, five in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and four in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies. Fewer, but still memorable, sisters in such works as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

Other novels spotlight strong female friendships (and sometimes conflict between those friends), as in Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale and Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride.

Then there are books featuring lesbian relationships, including Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, Colette’s Claudine at School, and Jane Rule’s Desert of the Heart.

Plus fiction set at women’s colleges (such as Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night), set in towns where female inhabitants are the focus (such as Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford), and that feature workplaces of all or mostly women (such as Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion and Lisa Scottoline’s The Vendetta Defense and other Scottoline novels starring characters from the female Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates).

What are your favorite women-centered novels?

This literature blog and my local weekly humor column usually don’t intersect, but I decided to give the latter a book theme for one week. Many authors and novels are referenced.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’ve finished writing a book called Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Writers, but am still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Women of Fiction With Lots of Ambition

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I like to go AWOL: reading novels that star Ambitious Women Of Literature. Those fictional characters are often Admirable while they Work hard to conquer Obstacles in Life — As We Observantly Look. But enough of this Acronym Wordplay Overdose Locus.

Ambitious female protagonists are of course more prevalent in modern literature, as a good chunk of the world has become less patriarchal and countless women have entered previously “male” professions. (Heck, the U.S. will probably elect a woman president in November.) But even long-ago literature has female protagonists impressively pushing against the limits that society places on them. All of which makes for plenty of potential drama in fiction old and new.

Much of my summer reading has featured ambitious female characters. For instance, Frank Moorhouse’s Grand Days focuses on twenty-something Australian Edith Campbell Berry as she starts work for the League of Nations in 1920s Geneva. Smart, driven, idealistic, self-analytical, willing to try new things, and sometimes rather annoying, Edith makes her mark in a mostly male milieu — but not without many challenges.

The book I read before that was Fannie Flagg’s I Still Dream About You, in which Maggie Fortenberry ambitiously tried but didn’t succeed in parlaying her Miss Alabama title into fame and fortune. Yet, as the novel gradually shows, this kind woman became a success in other ways.

Then there’s I Still Dream About You‘s villain, real estate agent Babs Bingington, who builds a boffo business for a while via a scorched-earth approach. (She came to Alabama from New Jersey, but — hey — there are many non-Babs-ian people in my state. 🙂 )

Other ambitious but not very likable protagonists include ruthless social climber Undine Spragg of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country, near-psychopath Cathy Trask of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and determined, manipulative, more-sympathetic-than-the-above-two-characters Becky Sharp of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

Having a higher likability quotient is hardworking Gervaise Macquart, who enterprisingly opens her own laundry before tragically being dragged down to life’s depths by her shiftless husband Coupeau in Emile Zola’s The Drinking Den.

On a more positive note, Emily Starr strongly wants to be a writer in the L.M. Montgomery trilogy of Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest. She achieves that goal, though her life has plenty of difficulties. Another memorable character driven to write is Jo March of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

The young widow title character in Thomas Hardy’s The Hand of Ethelberta also knows what she wants: to be a successful poet (done!) and to bring together herself and the siblings with whom she grew up poor. You’ll be impressed with how the resourceful Ethelberta goes about trying to achieve that second goal.

The likable Thea Kronborg’s ambition is a singing career, and she becomes a renowned opera star in Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark.

Another likable and ambitious protagonist is the title character in Robert Haught’s Here’s Clare and Clare’s New Leaf. In the first novel, she runs for governor of California; in the second, her accomplishments include acting work.

Although her quest was supposedly pushed by God more than herself, Joan of Arc was certainly ambitious in taking command of a 15th-century French army. That tale is “fictionalizingly” told in Mark Twain’s historical novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

Then there’s Hermione Granger, who’s self-driven to be the smartest and hardest-working Hogwarts student in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. AWOL in the sense that she’s Among Wizards Of Literature.

Who are your favorite ambitious female characters?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

When Gender Enters a Blender in Literature

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I like a lot of literature in which women display so-called “masculine” behavior and men display so-called “feminine” behavior.

That not only applies to recent fiction written during a time when gender roles are thankfully becoming less defined, but also applies to older lit by the occasional authors who weren’t totally rigid about gender roles in an era when that kind of tolerance was considered “out there.” Sometimes, older lit was dismissive of the gender-role flexibility it was depicting; other times, it was more sincere.

Why do I like it when female and male characters are not put in gender boxes? Besides the fact that gender roles should be more fluid, that fluidity can make for stories that are more interesting, unconventional, etc.

Two works I read this summer exemplify how compelling all this can be. One of them was Julia Alvarez’s superb novel In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), a part-fictionalized tale of four real-life sisters who riskily (three were murdered) became prominent in the effort to depose despicable dictator Rafael Trujillo — ruler of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until he was assassinated himself in 1961. The other work was Bret Harte’s memorable short story “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (1868), in which hard-bitten California Gold Rushers act maternally with a baby born in an all-male camp (the mother died in childbirth).

I read Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White a couple of decades ago, but still vividly recall one of its most original characters: Marian Halcombe, who was depicted as kind of “masculine” even as her main attributes were intelligence, resourcefulness, and bravery displayed while helping unravel the 1859 novel’s mystery.

There’s the also-brave Judith Hutter in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer — which, despite being published in 1841 and set in the 1740s, has her be the one to propose marriage to frontiersman Natty Bumppo.

In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Ma Joad becomes the decision-maker (and her husband takes a more subsidiary role) as intense hardship befalls their family.

Then there are novels in which women run for high political office — as does the title character in Robert L. Haught’s engaging Here’s Clare (2014) when she seeks the California governorship. (I’m now reading the 2016 sequel, Clare’s New Leaf.) Of course, politics is less of a male’s world than it used to be, but still unfortunately a majority-men realm.

Or novels in which women work in other professions many still tend to associate with men — as does the Sheila character who runs a New Orleans bar in the memorable Grail Nights (2015) by Amanda Moores (wife of commenter jhNY).

When it comes to female characters who are girls, there are many examples of “tomboys”: Scout Finch of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Jo March of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868), Maggie Tulliver of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860), Frankie Addams of Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding (1946), and Idgie Threadgoode of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987), among others. Some grow out of their “tomboy” ways, some don’t; some are definitely or seemingly gay, some aren’t.

Adult males who don’t fit the conventional masculine mold? The gentle giant King of Elizabeth Berg’s Open House (2000) cooks like a chef and has had just one sexual experience as he approaches middle age. And there’s the also-gentle Forney Hull, who works in a library in Billie Letts’ Where the Heart Is (1995).

Heck, being gentle is not that unusual a male trait, but there’s still an expectation that many male characters will be macho, sexist, domineering, sports-talking people reluctant to share their feelings.

Other male characters defy the “conventional wisdom” by being much better parents than their wives; one example is Subhash of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (2013).

Young fictional males acting in non-stereotypical ways include Paul Irving, the sweet, daydreaming boy in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Avonlea (1909) who eventually becomes a published poet; and John Grimes, the sensitive teen protagonist in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).

(In Baldwin’s novel, John’s nice-guy biological father Richard died because of police racism that’s still tragically with us in 2016 as trigger-happy white cops yet again shot and murdered defenseless African-Americans — this time, Alton Sterling of Louisiana and Philando Castile of Minnesota, after which there was retaliatory violence against police in Dallas.)

Sadly, many female and male characters are thwarted when trying to break free of gender boxes. For instance, the wife in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s riveting 1892 story “The Yellow Wallpaper” just wants to work and have some mental stimulation, but — like many 19th-century women — has to deal with monotony and oppression at the hands of her patronizing husband and society in general.

What are some of your favorite literary works that scramble gender expectations?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Female-Focused Fiction

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Compared to decades ago, today there is more fiction written by women and more literary works in which female characters significantly outnumber the male ones. Still, like almost everything else, much of literature unfortunately remains a majority-male world. So it’s especially nice when one stumbles on, or deliberately seeks out, fiction with a female focus.

And some of that literature isn’t very recent. I just read Dorothy L. Sayers’ interesting 1935 mystery Gaudy Night, which is set at a British women’s college and thus features many female students, alumnae, professors, and staffers. One of the alumnae is Harriet Vane, a well-known crime author who is asked by the college to investigate some weird goings-on in its hallowed halls.

Gaudy Night‘s frequent feminist elements are among the novel’s pleasures — which reminds me that female-dominated literature often strongly or subtly addresses women’s rights, patriarchy, sexism, mother-daughter relationships (good and bad), gender issues in the workplace, and more — usually to a greater extent than male-centric lit does.

And given that women often act differently when they’re around women rather than men, it’s interesting to see how that manifests itself in female-centric lit. (Men also often act differently when they’re around men rather than women, but that’s another story…)

Another school-set novel featuring many females is Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, in which the unconventional teacher of the book’s title is assigned six girl students who become known as “the Brodie set.”

Many other female-focused novels star sisters — whether it be two, three, four, or five of them. Among the most famous are Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Those and other multi-daughter books often feature memorable mother characters, too. (By the way, Happy Mother’s Day!)

Friendships between women also play a large role in various female-focused novels — including Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale, Toni Morrison’s Sula, and Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride. While those relationships are often positive and nurturing, there are obviously some marked by jealousy and worse. For instance, The Robber Bride spotlights the wonderful long-term friendship of three women, even as a fourth woman they all know makes life hell for the trio.

Of course, novels featuring characters who are lesbian (such as Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle) or who are experimenting with lesbianism (such as Colette’s Claudine at School) usually have a strong female focus.

Then there’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, in which the friendship between co-workers Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison has a lesbian subtext that’s understated — partly because the characters are interacting in the pre-World War II American South. Fannie Flagg’s book also includes the wonderful cross-generational friendship between Evelyn Couch and Ninny Threadgoode, who meet in the novel’s 1980s present-day.

And women are the focus of many plays — including Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles and Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, to name just two.

What are your favorite female-centric works of fiction?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Fiction’s Female Felons

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The vast majority of criminals are men. One statistic I found on “the Internets” says only 18% of the U.S. “correctional population” is female. Many men are just more lawless and violent, to state the obvious.

So when fictional women do something they might get arrested for, it can be…arresting. And startling, fascinating, etc. — heightening the drama many literature lovers crave.

Adding to the interest is that many female “villains” have nuanced, complex reasons for committing crimes. Maybe the power imbalance in a patriarchal world finally gets to them. Maybe the felony happens in a moment of intense anger. Maybe their victims fully or partly deserve it. Maybe some progression of circumstances makes the illegal action almost inevitable. You rarely see totally senseless violence done by women.

Anita Shreve’s absorbing novel The Weight of Water, which I read this month, features a double murder committed by a woman I won’t name to avoid a spoiler. One totally understands the fury that causes her to kill the first person, who had treated her badly. The killing that immediately follows — committed because that second victim was a witness about to run for help — was less easy to stomach.

The two homicides in Shreve’s book take place in the 1800s, as does the double murder in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace. The Grace Marks character serves a long prison term for being an accomplice to that crime (her male cohort is hanged), but it’s ambiguous how much Grace was actually involved in the mayhem.

Another 20th-century book set partly in the 19th century is Louis Sachar’s young-adult novel Holes, in which white teacher Katherine falls in love with Sam, a kind black man subsequently murdered for the interracial relationship. Katherine becomes a vengeful outlaw, killing a number of men who deserve that fate.

Novels written in the 19th-century also have their share of women on the wrong side of the law; among those books are George Eliot’s Adam Bede and Wilkie Collins’ Armadale.

Hetty Sorrel of Eliot’s novel is a poor young woman seduced by the rich squire Arthur Donnithorne, who has no intention of marrying her. She becomes pregnant, and what happens to the baby might mean the gallows for Hetty.

The charismatic Lydia Gwilt of Armadale is a schemer and would-be killer, but also possesses some conscience and vulnerability.

Virtually no vulnerability or conscience in Annie Wilkes, the psychotic former nurse from Stephen King’s Misery who does unspeakable things to the author (Paul Sheldon) she traps in her home.

As with Alias Grace, there are questions in Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel about whether the title character is a criminal or not. Did Rachel help poison Philip’s late guardian Ambrose? Or is she innocent?

Then there’s the self-defense killing by Janie Crawford in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, but she is nonetheless charged with murder.

Also charged with homicide (of her married lover) is Laura Hawkins in The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.

And as Dorothy L. Sayers’ Strong Poison begins, detective novelist Harriet Vane is in jail for allegedly offing her former lover.

Do Crawford, Hawkins, and Vane get convicted or acquitted? I don’t think it’s a crime to say I’m not telling. 🙂

In the Jack Reacher novels, there are a small number of female “bad guys.” One book (I won’t name it for spoiler reasons) makes it seem like a man is the serial murderer of women when in fact the culprit ends up being a female (driven by bitterness toward her stepsister and a hankering for the family inheritance) who has slain the various women to confuse investigators. That Lee Child novel is similar to The Weight of Water in setting up a male as the probable suspect — which of course skillfully and subversively plays to our knowledge that men are more likely than women to commit crimes.

Who are some of your “favorite” female transgressors in literature?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

One Reason to Like Recent Fiction

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I love classic literature that was written decades or centuries ago. But one advantage of more recent lit is that it features more women and people of color in prominent professions — such as medicine, law, academia, the media, and politics.

Older fiction has mostly white males as doctors, attorneys, professors, publishers, etc. — which of course reflected real life at the time. Female and “minority” characters tended to be homemakers, secretaries, laborers, craftspeople, servants, governesses, one-room-schoolhouse teachers, and so on — with many of them frustrated that societal norms didn’t allow them better job opportunities.

Obviously, long-ago classics featured some exceptions — including preacher Dinah Morris in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, journalist Henrietta Stackpole in Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady, and the title characters in Mark Twain’s historical novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and Eugene O’Neill’s play The Emperor Jones. But those cases were relatively rare — and the characters were often “punished” in some way for their prominence, or eventually became stay-at-home wives/mothers.

Which reminds me that Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables and its many sequels is a brilliant girl who later becomes a teacher and college student (in that order) — but then ends up as a homemaker. She is happily married (to Dr. Gilbert Blythe), a great mother, and an admired person who retains intellectual interests, but it’s all a bit disappointing after her early promise. L.M. Montgomery’s Anne novels were set during a time of more restricted gender roles, but the author did break the mold by having the title character in her semi-autobiographical Emily trilogy become a professional writer.

Sometimes, women and people of color in older novels fared okay if they were prominent in the arts or entertainment fields. For instance, while her life was by no means perfect, renowned opera singer Thea Kronborg did pretty well for herself in Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark.

Accomplished women often felt/still feel that they have to choose between professional success and marriage/parenthood, while men have less trouble attaining both. That’s of course the case in fiction as well as real life.

Life can also be hard for the rare females and “minorities” who don’t know “their place” in novels written recently but set in earlier times. For instance, Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures co-stars amateur fossil hunter Mary Anning, whose expert 19th-century work was mostly dismissed because of her gender (and because she was working-class). Madison Smartt Bell’s All Souls’ Rising features Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, a brilliant military and political leader who couldn’t indefinitely overcome overwhelming odds.

Obviously, tons of recent books that are not historical novels feature women and people of color in prominent jobs. I’ll name just a few.

Female professors? In such works as Alison Lurie’s Foreign Affairs (Virginia Miner) and Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride (Tony Fremont), while academics in Zadie Smith’s On Beauty include female prof Claire Malcolm and black prof Monty Kipps.

Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters focuses on several young Nigerian intellectuals in various fields, while Terry McMillan’s novels include African-American women such as Stella Payne (a stockbroker in How Stella Got Her Groove Back) and Savannah Jackson (a TV producer in Waiting to Exhale).

In the health-care field, we have pharmacist Zandy and psychiatrist-in-training Clarissa in Steve Martin’s The Pleasure of My Company — among many other examples of medical people populating recent novels.

We also have attorney Reggie Love in John Grisham’s The Client, prominent law-enforcement agent Julia Sorenson in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novel A Wanted Man, computer wiz Kat Potente in Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, politician Alma Coin in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, and publisher Erika Berger in Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy” (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc.).

Who are some of your favorite female and “minority” characters holding prestigious positions in both recent and older literature?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else. Also, please feel free to read through comments and reply to anyone you want; I love not only being in conversations, but also reading conversations in which I’m not involved!)

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For three years of my Huffington Post literature blog, click here.

I’m also writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in New York City and Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.