We Can’t Bookend Vivian Gornick
Vivian Gornick’s brilliant half-century writing career can’t be captured in a single essay or volume. To engage with her writing is to be left wanting more of her writing.
Vivian Gornick at a book signing in 2016. (Christchurch City Libraries / Flickr)
In the 1970s, a housewife in Iowa wrote a letter to her cousin in New York: “Although I think I am a typical suburban housewife, I don’t think any of my friends would call me typical.”
She went on to explain that she volunteered for George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, adopted a black child, and “at dinner parties I challenge some of the ‘male chauvinist attitudes.’” She wrote that she had not joined any groups but was in sympathy with the women’s movement. She described her recent realization that at her homeowners’ association meetings,
I’m the only woman who ever says anything. . . . It honestly never dawned on me before, but I suddenly saw the truth: nobody expects the women to talk. It bothers them all — especially the men — when a woman talks.
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