Looks like an interesting read. But that's a big, ugly dangling participle in the subhead, unless you're suggesting that Janelle Brown is an it. Probably not Ms. Traister's doing, but someone at Salon should know better.

More 70s feminist crapola - "women = victims", "men = perpetrators".

And Germaine Greer. That clapped out, geriatric pedophile should have recused herself from society long ago.

Leave it to RT to shill for her. Keep singing the feminist Kumbaya chorus, hairy victim-feminists. The women's studies echo chamber needs some noise.

...just to find out how a woman manages to get cut out of her husband's property after 30 years of marriage rather than getting at least half of everything as she's entitled.

The previous letter writer had it way wrong. This doesn't sound like "Men bad, women good" - more like "men bad, women fucking idiots."

As the previous letter pointed out, the novel is perhaps at its most ridiculous in suggesting that a 30-year marriage could dissolve and leave the woman with nothing; California divorce law mandates a 50/50 split after 10 years of marriage, regardless of who earned the income. That's why so many celebrities married in CA a) divorce prior to the 10-year anniversary and b) have lengthy prenups. The law was that way in the late 90s, so unless the author explains her way around this in the novel, it sounds like a rather large sticking point in the plot.

The law in CA mandates a 50/50 split of community property after a marriage of ANY duration. However, in a "marriage of long duration" in CA (defined as a marriage of 10 years or more), the lesser-earning spouse may qualify for lifetime alimony.

It's a golddigger's paradise.

Check this out:

http://bp0.blogger.com/_G9o4wdCXPE0/SDhIHBM-2SI/AAAAAAAAACg/Vd6mElCvcsY/s1600-h/joanwalsh-may24.jpg

Excellent review of this book - I plan to buy a copy later this week. In fact, I may buy two copies just to counteract the energy drain created by the odd anti-feminist comments preceding this one.

The book is fiction - the author's job is to weave a plausible story and if she's good enough, allow us to suspend disbelief long enough to be transported into someone else's world. So to everyone stuck on the feminist sub-plot issues and the finer point of divorce law - RELAX! Enjoy the read - It's fiction. Historical accuracy is not essential.

I am the first person to...not necessarily get...but to appreciate the Roxy Music reference.

the Bauhaus reference?

rears its ridiculous, self-important head. I'm struck by how quick and vehement the anti-feminist comments were, especially as the review really doesn't mention all that much about "teh evul menz!!1!" Projection maybe?

I don't see the dangling participle in that subhead. The subject of the sentence is "Janelle Brown's addictive Silicon Valley novel," not Janelle Brown.

Isn't that a line from an early Roxy Music song?

Yes, off the first album. One of the great albums of all time.

It's about an inflatable doll. Immortal and lifesize.

Bryan Ferry blew up her body, but she blew his mind.

The dangling participle must have been corrected, but it isn't the only style error in the piece (is the repetition of the word 'tale' intentional?). Seems like someone may have done a rush-job at the copy desk.

Sounds like a fascinating read, with plenty of tawdriness and nostalgia to keep the pages turning. I guess where I started narrowing (and then rolling) my eyes was when Ms. Traister starts calling this book 'unabashedly feminist.'

To begin with, if I were Janelle Brown, I'd hope that my fiction would accomplish something more than pressing a heavy-handed social agenda.

Secondly, I can't for the life of me figure out what's 'feminist' about a story that portrays women acting weak and delusional and allowing themselves to get crapped on by men all the time. It actually seems more misogynistic to portray a smart, ambitious woman who drops everything and 'allows herself to get pregnant' to secure marriage to a 'California scion', another woman who writes a Donna Harraway-inspired Master's thesis and yet allows herself to become the titular 'cyborg,' following her pretty boyfriend's star and then pining for him when he inevitably trades up, and a sweet little girl who needs to be shown bathroom graffiti to learn that blowing half a dozen guys before you get your driver's license is going to get you the wrong kind of reputation (and that you'll be most actively persecuted by other girls).

I'm really not being a smart-ass; I am just genuinely curious as to what 'feminist' is supposed to mean anymore. I personally know far too many women who are too shrewd, independent, and accomplished--dating back to the 'boom' years--to see the women described in this review as representative of their gender in some grand, sweeping way. I guess I'd rather see them as fictional characters than as pawns in a political agenda. In any case, I'm very curious to read the novel and will probably pick it up, despite the reviewer's compulsion to frame it according to the theme of a Women's Studies seminar. Good fiction should defy this kind of simplistic, anecdotal reduction. Given Ms. Traister's apparent compulsion to draw hyperbolic generalizations about pretty much everything that strikes her fancy, I'm going to assume the fault lies with the reviewer and give Ms. Brown the benefit of the doubt.

I didn't get the Roxy Music reference, but did think immediately of Stephen Malkmus' Church on White.

All you ever wanted was everything

but the truth they only poured you

half a life

One of his best post-Pavement songs for sure

The misplaced modifier was corrected shortly after I posted my letter last night.

"Remember the boom? The seemingly endless sunny days, the IPOs, the stock options, the insatiable appetites for stuff -- food and drugs and money and exposed pipes and stainless steel kitchens? Remember all that hope and greed and youth and bright shining possibility"

No, I don't actually. Not everyone was getting IPO's and buying stainless steel kitchens in the 90's. Most people weren't actually.