 
|
L.C.Author: Susan Daitch American Literature Series March 2002 284 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 paperback, 1-56478-315-4 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $11.96—20% OFF! 
|
|
Book Description
Blending historical fiction with feminist and revolutionary politics, Susan Daitch's first novel is a complex and unique look at the controversial nature of historical representations. This story within a story within a story opens in 1968, with a preface to Dr. Willa Rehnfield's translation of Lucienne Crozier's diary. Although the authenticity of Lucienne's account is uncertain, her diary attests to her involvement in the 1848 revolution in Paris, an illicit love affair, and her eventual exile from France.
Midway through Rehnfield's translation, a distinctly modern voice emerges from the footnotes. These notes belong to Dr. Rehnfield's literary executor, Jane Amme—a Berkeley radical on the run for her actions during the student riots of the 1960s—who uncovered the translated diary and became intrigued with the parallels between Lucienne's depictions of revolution and her own experiences. Dissatisfied with Dr. Rehnfield's translation, Jane defiantly rewrites the final outcome of Lucienne's story, reclaiming this forgotten Frenchwoman as a prototype of the modern feminist.
About the Author
|
Susan Daitch was born in 1954 in New Haven, Connecticut. She attended and graduated from Barnard College in 1977. During this time she worked as a painter creating what she called "narrative drawings." Later, her attention turned to the Whitney Museum of Modern Arts Independent Study Program where she received further education and eventually began work. During the late 1970s, her artistic approach came to a turning point with a move from art towards fiction. Daitch is the author of a collection of short stories, Storytown, and two novels, L.C. and The Colorist. Her work has appeared in The Voice Literary Supplement, Bomb, The Iowa Anthology of Transgressive Fiction, and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Literature. She currently lives in New York City. |
 |
Praise
"A beautifully crafted novel which demands attention and offers the rewards of an intelligent and thought-provoking read."—Women's Review of Books"Susan Daitch's L.C. is an important book. . . . Through complex novelistic strategies and acute historical imaginings, she produces a form which encourages us to rethink both fiction and history."—Times Literary Supplement
"Well worth reading for its ingenious interweaving of narrative threads, for its uncompromising treatment of sex and politics, and for the questions it raises about truth and deception in representing self and history."—Los Angeles Times
"A book which seems at first a historical novel gradually becomes a work of detection with an underlying theme of personal and political freedom. I urge you to read it."—Hampstead Highgate Express
"This is a beautifully structured novel. . . . Not a light read, but a rewarding one, this is an astonishingly good first novel."—Literary Review
"An impassioned, densely written political novel with feminist overtones."—Publishers Weekly
"A superb first novel, assured and intelligent."—Books and Bookmen
"L.C. is a first novel and a remarkable one; endlessly inventive, in a rich sense circular."—Financial Times
"L.C. is an impressive opening to what looks like a serious career."—Guardian