Sex Wars (51 page)
Authors: Marge Piercy
For Anthony Comstock, I relied on his own writings and on what I found to be the best biography,
Weeder in the Garden of the Lord,
by Anna Louise Bates (University Press of America, 1995), and on information from the many histories of censorship and birth control in the States.
For Freydeh, I used general histories of Jewish immigrant experience in New York, histories of Jewish life in the Pale and more specific works such as
The World of Our Mothers: The Lives of Jewish Immigrant Women,
by Sydney Stahl Weinberg (University of North Carolina Press, 1988).
Several more general books were helpful:
Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America,
by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), which is outstanding;
Everyday Life in the 1800s,
by Marc McCutcheon (Writer’s Digest Books, 1993), which—supplemented by
The Oxford English Dictionary
and my editor Caroline Marino’s sharp eye—kept me from anachronisms;
America’s Gilded Age: Intimate Portraits from an Era of Extravagance and Change,
by Milton Rugoff (Henry Holt, 1989); Luc Sante’s
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991);
Lights and Shadows of New York Life; or, The Sights and Sensations of the Great City,
by James D. McCabe Jr. (National Publishing, 1872; facsimile edition, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970);
City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920,
by Timothy Gilfoyle (W. W. Norton, 1992);
Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America,
by Janet Farrell Brodie (Cornell University Press, 1994);
Free Love and Heavenly Sinners: The Story of the Great Henry Ward Beecher
Scandal,
by Robert Shaplen (Alfred A. Knopf, 1954); and
Reverend Beecher and Mrs. Tilton: Sex and Class in Victorian America,
by Altina L. Waller (Basic Books, 1980).
Jacob Riis’s photographs, although of a slightly later period, evoked the life of the streets and tenements. The Museum of Sex in New York offered concrete glimpses of some of the events and places I was writing about. The Tenement Museum of New York was also fascinating, and the guides there knowledgeable.
It has been a most interesting journey, researching and writing this novel. I hope reading it will prove as interesting to you.
M
ARGE
P
IERCY
is the author of fifteen previous novels, including
Gone to Soldiers
and
Woman on the Edge of Time,
and sixteen books of poetry, including
The Art of Blessing the Day
and
Circle on the Water.
She lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
“A resonant tale of public and private lives during a time of staggering so cietal shifts… This is a big American story. It feels most American in its dissension, in its struggles, and in its ultimately hopeful tone.
Sex Wars
shows, in the way a deeply felt tale can, the roots of the battles we still fight today.”
—
Boston Globe
“Piercy does a nice job with the sexual politics… The sights, sounds…of early New York City linger long after the story is done.”
—
People
“The genuine article—a ripping yarn that gives you a real feeling of and for the times and the people… Powerful.”
—
Washington Times
“Any novel that starts out by tweaking men for not knowing how to find a lover’s clitoris gets my rapt attention. And sustains it throughout this spirited romp through the Gilded Age, with some of the era’s most col orful and accomplished characters.”
—Alix Kates Shulman
“Mesmerizing, sexy, and forthright… Piercy’s portrayals of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony are strikingly affectionate and funny.”
—
Booklist
“Enjoyable…unusually entertaining…engrossing. In Woodhull and Freydeh, Piercy has created fascinating portraits of women determined to live on their own terms.”
—
Christian Science Monitor
“Piercy does beautifully render some of the details of women’s lives in the 1860s.”
—Naomi Wolf,
Elle
magazine
“Fascinating and only too relevant… Piercy has a gift for conjuring the texture of an historical era.”
—
Washington Post Book World
“Succeeds remarkably in bringing history textbook characters to fully re alized, fiery, and memorable life.”
—
Hartford Courant
POETRY
Colors Passing Through Us
The Art of Blessing the Day
Early Grrrl
What Are Big Girls Made Of?
Mars and Her Children
Available Light
My Mother’s Body
Stone, Paper, Knife
Circles on the Water
(Selected Poems)The Moon Is Always Female
The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing
Living in the Open
To Be of Use
4-Telling
(with Bob Hershon, Emmett Jarrett and Dick Lourie)Hard Loving
Breaking Camp
NOVELS
The Third Child
Three Women
Storm Tide
(with Ira Wood)City of Darkness, City of Light
The Longings of Women
He, She and It
Summer People
Gone to Soldiers
Fly Away Home
Braided Lives
Vida
The High Cost of Living
Woman on the Edge of Time
Small Changes
Dance the Eagle to Sleep
Going Down Fast
OTHER
So You Want to Write: How to Master the Craft of Writing Fiction and the Personal Narrative (with Ira Wood)
The Last White Class: A Play
(with Ira Wood) Sleeping with Cats: A Memoir
Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt: Essays
Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now: An Anthology
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
SEX WARS
. Copyright © 2005 by Middlemarsh, Inc..
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-01439-9
F
IRST
H
ARPER
P
ERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED
2006.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Piercy, Marge.
Sex wars / Marge Piercy.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 0-06-078983-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-078983-1
1. Suffragists—Fiction. 2. Women—Suffrage—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3566.I4S49 2005
813’.54—dc22
2005041499
ISBN-10: 0-06-078987-5 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-078987-9 (pbk.)
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