A Short History of Women

The eighth book of the New York Times Ten Best of 2009 is the novel by Kate Walbert with the pithy title of A Short History of Women, which is a perfect title, really, as Walbert paints in quick strokes the arc of the struggle of women in the twentieth century and beyond.

She does this by focusing on five generations of the same family, starting with Dorothy Trevor Townsend, an Englishwoman who starves herself to death in protest over fight for suffrage. She leaves behind two children, both of whom go to America. Her daughter, Evelyn, becomes a professor of chemistry at Barnard, and never marries. She has a niece, also name Dorothy, who follows the traditional pattern of home and marriage, at least until she becomes elderly, when she becomes a fervent antiwar protester and devoted fancier of Florence Nightingale.

Dorothy has two daughters, one of them a successful businesswoman, the other a mother of small children who is caught up in the contemporary world of Manhattan playdates. The businesswoman has a daughter at Yale who is also named Dorothy but changes her name to Dora, after the mistress of Pablo Picasso.

I enjoyed this book, but it took me a while to get into. Walbert hopscotches through time, not following a strict chronological line, and the chapters dealing with older events seemed more obscure to me, as if they were badly faded photographs. The chapters dealing with more recent events, such as a women's "rap" session in the 1970s and the account of the playdate, were much more vivid. I also got a kick out of Dora being entirely represented by her Facebook profile.

I do admire Walbert's restraint. She has created an entire family, complete with tree, but does not indulge in a huge history. Instead she lives up to her title, giving us brief glimpses of them through their lives, which makes for better drama.