Trio of new audiobooks celebrate women
Just in time for Women’s History Month comes three new audiobooks that highlight stories about women.
“A History of Women in 101 Objects” by Annabelle Hirsch: Rifling through the great junk drawer of history, Hirsch has come up with 101 miscellaneous treasures — some unexpected (George Sands’ right arm), some obvious (the contraceptive pill). Each contributes its tale to the history of women: a healed femur (Margaret Mead’s answer when asked about the first sign of human civilization), a washing paddle (“an essential piece of equipment for any country-dwelling woman”), a Remington typewriter (new jobs, new ways for women to express themselves), the minidress (“the garment of the sexual revolution”), Kim Kardashian’s ring (“exhibiting yourself isn’t without its risks, but it also bestows power”). The book’s final entry is “a bunch of hair,” an inclusion meant to highlight the omission of the headscarf or veil, an article whose complex significance fills this provocative chapter. The work has been greatly enhanced in the audio version by the voices of 101 (chiefly British) women, itself a truly daunting achievement. An elegant-voiced Helen Mirren gives us perfumed gloves, Helena Bonham Carter celebrates the hatpin, Kate Winslet handles the cinematograph, Lisa-Kaindé Diaz waxes breathily over Chanel No. 5, and hard-nosed Val McDermid presents the thumbscrew. And somehow, strangely, Angelica Huston has ended up with Tupperware. Endlessly fascinating and diverse in the voices presenting it, this is a wonderful, kaleidoscopic exploration of history.
“The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks” by Jeanne Theoharis: First published in 2013 and now available in an audio version, Theoharis’ revealing biography of Rosa Parks paints an arresting, multidimensional portrait of the woman who has so often been reduced to one act: her refusal to give up her seat to a White man on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 1, 1955. Here we do not find an unassuming seamstress whose tired feet prompted a spontaneous rebellion but, instead, a radical activist whose modest demeanor disguised determination and purpose born of years of engagement in the cause of desegregation and Black liberation. Theoharis also shows how, in its early years, the civil rights movement was deeply sexist. Its male leaders, dedicated and brave as they undoubtedly were, still treated Parks chiefly as an exhibit, seldom giving her the chance to speak for herself. Judith West narrates this superb biography in a methodical manner that takes getting used to, but eventually her voice’s clarity and steady pace strike the listener as appropriate to relaying the myriad details of this courageous, politically momentous life.
“The Women” by Kristin Hannah: Hannah’s thoroughly engrossing novel takes up the underappreciated heroism of American nurses in the Vietnam War. Frankie McGrath has trained as a nurse with the aim of joining her much-loved big brother serving in Vietnam. He is killed half an hour into the novel — the first in a series of wrenching casualties — but Frankie persists, becoming an Army nurse, more intent than ever on saving lives. The first half of the novel affords a devastating look at the death, mutilation and overall destruction witnessed every day by these valiant women. Offsetting that horror is the lasting friendship that develops between Frankie and two other nurses. She also falls in love, though that comes with its own budget of pain. Back in the States, Frankie suffers from terrifying episodes of PTSD, from society’s refusal to believe that women served in the conflict and from her own parents’ discomfiture over her service. Hannah’s potent storytelling skills are brilliantly served by narrator Julia Whelan, whose limber, lowpitched voice moves nimbly from person to person, capturing personality and mood, her empathy palpable.