Volume 22, Number 15 · October 2, 1975
Girl Crazy
By N.A. Straight
A year ago, Morris Dickstein, writing in The New York Times, singled out a group of women writers who, under the influence of Portnoy's Complaint, were 'getting into the confessional swing,' hurdling the barriers of sex. These writers, whose number has since increased, have been credited with representing a new wave, a bold and honest feminist realism. Erica Jong has 'laid down in hard cold type the full details of her heroine's sex life and fantasies,' wrote an excited Dorothy Sieberling in 'The New Sexual Frankness: Goodbye to Hearts and Flowers' (New York Magazine, February 17, 1975). Erica Jong is of course the most visible representative of this movement, being the most successful commercially and the most publicized, but a number of other women who have published novels recently—Sue Kaufman (Falling Bodies), Sandra Hochman (Walking Papers), Barbara Raskin (Loose Ends), Jill Robinson (Bed/Time/Story), et al.—can be seen as sharing many of Jong's characteristics.
Feature, 2152 words
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