History through the eyes of sidelined women
‘Herstory’ often left to fiction because records leave much to imagination
“Behind every great man is a great woman” is an expression that, as a child, I imagined literally: a woman standing behind a man — just a little to the left, cut from the main scene, wringing her hands and worrying about the details. I didn’t especially like that image, and I think that’s why I so enjoy novels that reimagine the lives of these sidelined women.
Turns out I’m not alone. There’s a trend that’s taken hold where, more and more, familiar historical events are being reimagined through a woman’s point of view.
“Telling these stories shows contemporary readers how these previously hidden women played a huge role in their husbands’ success, and I don’t just mean by getting their laundry done or their meals on the table,” says Susanna Porter, an executive editor at Random House who acquired and edited both Loving Frank (2007), a novel by Nancy Horan that tells the story of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, lifelong mistress of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (2011), which shows macho author Ernest Hemingway from the perspective of his first wife, Hadley Richardson, a complex woman in her own right.
“We hear of an ‘artist’s muse’ and it sounds like such a passive role, as if the woman just sat there looking ethereal,” Porter says. “Whereas these spouses were well-read, in most cases educated and actively engaged with their husbands in conversation, in life decisions, often in literary or artistic judgment.”
While pushing women to the historical forefront is a good thing and the market continues to demand it — we still have unfinished business, says literary agent Carly Watters.
“There are a lot of sexist things about the trend: the idea that a woman’s story has to be framed through her relationship with the men in her life, for example. By taking control of the narrative, authors who have written in this theme have had the opportunity to reposition a woman’s role.”
One overlooked historical figure now being more vividly rendered through fiction is Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric, who was an accomplished physicist, too. Author Marie Benedict — she also writes historical fiction under the pen name Heather Terrell — released The Other Einstein in October of this year. “Millennial women relate to her marginalization from the science field, particularly if they are in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers themselves,” Benedict says.
“And older women feel anger on Maric’s behalf for the lack of recognition she received not only for her scientific contributions but also for providing the necessary home support that allowed Albert to focus ex- clusively on science.”
But not everyone is accepting these new retellings at face value. A Psychology Today article dismissed The Other Einstein as mere speculation — although it ignored the fact that telling the stories of figures such as Maric in any form other than fiction can be difficult because there are few records of their lives. Especially in the case of Einstein, most of the saved historical information focuses on the man. “So how are we meant to know what work Maric actually did?” says Benedict. “And why isn’t the onus on detractors to prove that the educated physicist who sat across the dinner table from Albert Einstein during the most prolific period of his scientific work did not contribute?”
Others must have wondered the same: Psychology Today soon published a follow-up article that defended the book, saying that, while it was fiction above all else, it provided an essential look at a time period where women’s voices and contributions were suppressed.
Until recently, Benedict didn’t think of herself or her work as particularly political — but the global landscape is changing and so is her view of her writing.
“(People are) anxious about the preservation of the wonderful multiplicity of voices that comprise our world, including women’s voices, their issues and their histories. I need to continue to unearth more and more marginalized voices and make certain that those voices have the broadest reach possible, even if in a fictional format.”
Benedict is now working on a novel about the lady’s maid of Andrew Carnegie’s mother, a woman who was pivotal in transforming a ruthless businessman into the world’s first philanthropist.
What the continued success of historical reinterpretations from female perspectives has proven is that women know they’ve had more of an impact on history than has always been documented, and they want that to be acknowledged.
“Just as history has so often glossed over the roles of women and minorities to keep white men at the forefront, western literature has done so as well,” says Porter.
We need to pay attention to these stories — as well as the real life stories of all those currently held in the margins of society. If we do, perhaps in the future we won’t have to rely so heavily on imagination.