Once a genre gains popularity, here come the parodies. Jane Austen grew up, petticoats deep in Gothic novels, and Jane had thoughts on reading them, writing them, and the effect they had on women readers. Our last novel, Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO is mentioned multiple times in Jane Austen’s NORTHANGER ABBEY, finished in 1799 but not published until a few months after Austen’s death in 1817.

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they explore the historical and literary context of this lesser known and sadly lesser-loved Jane Austen novel. Find out why being Mrs. Tilney would be better than being Mrs. Darcy. Hear about a Jane Austen narrator that is not ambiguous and hard to pin down in a meta story about reading…a story that seems to agree with IWAW: namely, that stories shape us.

Along the way, we discover there is no crime in early 19th century England, we confirm that female frenemies have always been a thing, and Jane Austen finds herself caught in a late 18th century catch-and-kill publishing move.

REFERENCES:

If you have not read NORTHANGER ABBEY, you should stop by your local bookstore, and if you don’t have one, order it from our local Lawrence bookstore, The Raven.

The novel that references monks molesting nuns is Matthew Lewis’s THE MONK from 1796.

If you have not read Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO from 1794, you can dive into those 600+ pages, or let us do the reading for you by listening to our fun, educational, romp through the plot in our MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO shows, Part 1 and Part 2.

Also, as always, we highly recommend Rachel Feder’s brilliant study of romantic heroes, THE DARCY MYTH or at least check out our show about it.

Much of the biographical information for this episode was taken from Claire Tomalin’s careful and thorough biography, JANE AUSTEN: A LIFE.

We also reference Charlotte Lennox’s THE FEMALE QUIXOTE from 1752 & FORDYCE'S SERMONS a collection of advice to young ladies from 1766.

Heather Aimee O’Neill published her debut novel, THE IRISH GOODBYE, on the last day of September, and it’s already started a reading wildfire: People Magazine just made it their Pick of the Week, it’s Apple Books’s October Staff Pick, and Jenna Bush Hager announced it as her “Read with Jenna” on the Today Show last week. Go, Heather!

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they ask Heather about dyslexia, her early years as a poet, the mentors who inspired her, her transition from poetry to prose, the importance of sisters, and the emotional work of finding her way to and through the creation of this beautiful first novel, THE IRISH GOODBYE. To spend time with Heather Aimee O’Neill is to dip into our shared cultural struggles and losses and to find a way to embrace and be at peace with all the messiness of relationships–especially with family. If you’ve ever simultaneously anticipated and dreaded holiday family gatherings, you’ll relate to her characters, and you’ll value Heather’s warmth and honesty in this interview.

Everyone is trying to get 5 minutes of this hot new novelist’s time, and she graciously gave way more than that to In Walks a Woman, so we’re betting you won’t find another interview that is as deep and thoughtful as this one. Start October right with the fourth in IWAW’s Authors’ Series!

Along the way, Sonja admits to some baking trauma, Heather invents “Long-Island Gothic,” and Vanessa loses track of Chekhov’s raccoon.

REFERENCES:

To learn more about Heather Aimee O’Neill, here is website & she’s can be found on Instagram.

If you live in Lawrence, Kansas, head on down to The Raven Bookstore on Mass or place an order through them at the Raven Bookstore Website.

When we mention “Eric” in this interview, that would be English professor and former Poet Laureate of Kansas, Eric McHenry. Heather considers Eric one of her most important mentors, and Sonja is so fond of Eric she married him and has two kids with him. If you want to check him out, here’s a good place to start!

Heather Aimee O’Neill references The Shit No One Tells you About Writing Podcast, and it’s legit–go check it out if you’re an aspiring writer!

If you want to purchase The Irish Goodbye, Heather Aimee O’Neill has been collaborating with Barnes & Noble, and this link will let you support them.

If you are looking for Heather Aimee O’Neill 2011 poetry collection, Memory Future–the one Sonja mentions–you should see if your local bookstore can order it for you…but if not, here is a link to Amazon. It’s not as widely available as her new novel, but it’s fantastic and totally worth hunting down.

As with the first part of our Udolpho episode, this is full of spoilers, so don’t listen if you are up for reading about 300 pages (approximately half) of this Ann Radcliffe novel. However, if you are seeking a lively summary that will allow you to chat confidently about THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO at your next cocktail party, do push play.

When you do, you will find yourself waist deep in banditti and pirates (which might seem like the same thing, but you’d be wrong). The story leaves the fabled Castle of Udolpho, but the intrigue does not end as Emily winds her way back, by road and by sea, to her homeland of France, and the patriarchal real estate hustle continues, while Radcliffe makes sure that every, single imaginable moment of mystery that we’ve encountered in the novel is tidily and rationally explained.

Then, we turn to the question of whether you should go ahead and read this novel yourself. What will you gain? What is there that we have not captured in our summary? The answer might surprise you.

Along the way, Sonja finds handy travel cash under a horse’s saddle, Vanessa does some “performative sighing” after summarizing this brick of a novel, and both Sonja and Vanessa agree that wallowing in melancholy does have its undeniable charms.

REFERENCES:

After recording about 50 episodes, itt’s hard not to refer back to books we’ve read for the pod, and you can find all of it in our previous seasons: check out our episode on Samuel Richardson’s 1740 Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded; for the reference on Mrs. Ramsey and Lily Brisco, here is a link to our To the Lighthouse episode; in the discussion about metaphorical windows, you might like these episodes: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Madeline Miller’s Circe, Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and our 3-part analysis of Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

If you are interested in our spicy episode on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” you’ll have to go to our Patreon–but we promise it’s worth it.

Welcome to Season 4: “Haunting Women”!

Here’s your first scare: Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 gothic classic, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, is 290,897 words long. For the average reader, reading at a speed of 300 WPM, that would take 13 hours and 5 minutes to read. And that does not count potty and snack breaks. If you are up for it, go for it! If not, as Sonja likes to say, we offer “Cliff’s Notes for Adults,” and we’ll bravely take you through the book. So are there spoilers in this episode? YES. YES. YES.

THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO was first published in 4 volumes, so this episode (dare we say heroically?) takes you through both volumes 1 & 2 in about an hour. What awaits you? Lots of patriarchy in the form of castles, marriages for property, and men who say that it’s your fault they have to kidnap you because you wouldn’t say yes to their marriage proposal. We also pay tribute to Ann Radcliffe’s expansive imagination: Radcliffe, a woman who had never left her home country of England before writing this sprawling travel narrative through mountains and dales and mountains and villages…and, well, more mountains. We review what “Gothic” means, especially to British writers of the 18th and 19th century, and we once again find that saucy, babbling servants make the lives of bland rich people more exciting.

Along the way, we bump into Scooby-Doo, and we play some Udolpho Bingo (Sonja wins), and both Sonja and Vanessa claim they’d marry a stalker who carved sonnets about them into garden walls.

REFERENCES:

Vanessa’s reference to Pamela is to Samuel Richardson’s 1740 novel, PAMELA: OR, VIRTUE REWARDED, which we cover in Season 3: Episode 5.

Sonja and Vanessa thought it best to put the last episode of season 3 safely on their Patreon...if you go there, you'll find out why!

www.patreon.com/InWalksAWoman

In the third of our author interviews, Sonja & Vanessa are proud to feature another Lawrence, Kansas local author: Rachel McCarthy James. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because she co-authored 2017’s cold-case cracking tour-de-force, Man on the Train, in which she and her coauthor, Bill James, solve a hundred-year old serial axe murderer mystery. In her new book, Rachel traces the history of the axe as tool, weapon, and cultural artifact. Whack Job includes so many killer stories (pun intended!), like the story of a murder victim, from 430,000 BCE, found along with an axe in the “Pit of Bones” in northern Spain. Whack Job also recounts hair-raising true crime stories that hit much closer to home, like the daylight axe murder of Frank Lloyd Wright’s mistress and five others at his Wisconsin “Love Cottage” in 1914.

In our interview, Rachel shares insights into her research methods, her travels, her “rabbit holes,” her original discoveries, the experience of working with editors to shape her manuscript–in short, the honest, hard work, determination, and sacrifice behind a well-researched and well-written history book. Plus, you are in for a treat because Rachel shares some fascinating stories that didn’t make it into the book!

Along the way, Vanessa and Rachel hatch a hatchet business venture, Sonja drools at hearing a new, non-cherry-tree axe story about George Washington, and the axe gets compared to an important but much maligned female body part.

REFERENCES:

Rachel's website

You can purchase Whack Job at any bookseller, but we suggest ordering it from our outstanding local bookstore, The Raven, in the heart of Lawrence, Kansas.

This book and this episode is like a fruit smoothie by the sunny seashore–light, sweet, gentle first love vibes. This is a YA selection we have chosen to find out what the youngest set values in romance stories. Appropriately, it is not an “E” episode–first time in the season! Sonja and Vanessa are joined again by their Designated Gen Z Reader, Sage McHenry, to better understand the meteoric rise of this book series…now television series.

Unless you’ve been living under ye olde proverbial Rock, you know that the “Summer I Turned Pretty” franchise is a cultural phenomenon with staggering fan engagement on all social platforms. Join us as we explore what makes it so appealing and what tropes it shares with other romances we’ve analyzed this season. Of course, Vanessa asks Sage some pesky questions, like, are all the messages of the series positive for younger female readers. As always, Sage “Designated Z” McHenry gives as good as she gets. Join us to see what you think…can we enjoy something and look at it critically?

Along the way, incest jumps out at us, Sonja loyally picks the “right” boy from the series to keep her daughter happy, and Vanessa finds out the golden retriever she hastily adopted might not turn out to be as adorable as he seemed.