A Short History of Women

A Novel

Kate Walbert

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2009
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439100547
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

NOMINATED FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE

A profoundly moving literary novel about the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, A Short History of Women chronicles five generations of women from the close of the 19th century through the early years of the 21st century.

Beginning in 1914 at the deathbed of Dorothy Trevor Townsend, a suffragette who starves herself for the cause, the novel traces the echoes of her choice in the stories of her descendants—a brilliant daughter who tries to escape the burden of her mother’s infamy; a granddaughter who chooses a conventional path, only to find herself disillusioned; a great-granddaughter who wryly articulates the free-floating anxiety of post-9/11 Manhattan.

In a kaleidoscope of characters and with a richness of imagery, emotion, and wit, A Short History of Women is a thought-provoking and vividly original narrative that crisscrosses a century—a book for "any woman who has ever struggled to find her own voice; to make sense of being a mother, wife, daughter, and lover" (Associated Press).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Contents
• Lineage
• Evelyn Charlotte Townsend: Wardsbury, Grayshead-on-Heath, England, 1914–1918
• Dorothy Trevor Townsend: London, England, 1914
• Dorothy Townsend Barrett: Dover, Delaware, 2003
• Dorothy Trevor: Cambridge, England, 1898
• Dorothy Trevor Townsend: Wardsbury, England, 1914
• Evelyn Charlotte Townsend: Grayshead-on-Heath, England, 1919
• Dorothy Townsend Barrett: Patagonia, Argentina, 2004
• Dorothy Trevor: Cambridge, England, 1899
• Dorothy Townsend Barrett: Silver Spring, Maryland, 1973/2006
• Evelyn Charlotte Townsend: V-J Day, New York City, New York, 1945
• Elizabeth “Liz” Anne Barrett: New York City, New York, 2007
• Dorothy Trevor Townsend: Wardsbury, England, 1914
• Caroline Townsend Barrett Deel: Bedford, New York, 2007
• Dorothy “Dora” Louise Barrett-Deel: New Haven, Connecticut, 2007
• Evelyn Charlotte Townsend: New York City, New York, 1985
• Acknowledgments
• 'The Sunken Cathedral' Excerpt
• Copyright