MAKING THE ROAD AS YOU GO: GAIL GODWIN’S “QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD”

Essay by Kerstin W. Shands A whirlwind story of news-chasing and publishing seen through the eyes of a young heroine, Gail Godwin’s Queen of the Underworld (Ballantine 2007) recalls the dynamic newspaper offices sparkling with collegial competition and smart repartee in American movies from the 1940s. During her first week as a staff reporter at […]

“Craft and Conviction: Gail Godwin’s History of the Heart,” by Kerstin W. Shands

Essay by Kerstin W. Shands Gail Godwin’s Heart: A Natural History of the Heart-Filled Life stems from a moment in time when Godwin had just re-read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. She had been thinking about a new novel regarding “a woman’s journey into a heart of darkness where she would have to confront her shadow” […]

“Hints of Impermanence: Ghosts and Orphans in Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage,” by Kerstin W. Shands

Essay by Kerstin W. Shands Gail Godwin’s new novel Grief Cottage (2017) is set in coastal South Carolina, an area rich in history, legend, and tradition. Evoking a real place and a real environment, Pawleys Island and the Isle of Palms, this novel introduces us to Grief Cottage, a profoundly charged site, a metaphorical rendezvous […]

“Performing Atonement: Regret, Responsibility, and Redemption in Gail Godwin’s ‘Flora,'” by Kerstin W. Shands

Essay by Kerstin W. Shands There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse. (Seneca) There are things we can’t undo, but perhaps there is a kind of constructive remorse that could transform regrettable acts into something of service to life.  (Godwin 1)   Wistfully […]

Kerstin Shands

Kerstin Shands has been teaching in the English Department at Södertörn University since 1998, where she has also organized several international conferences, most recently a conference on autobiography. Among her books are: The Repair of the World: The Novels of Marge Piercy (1994) and Embracing Space: Spatial Metaphors in Feminist Discourse (1999). As the editor of Södertörn University English […]