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Oy
Pioneer!
A Novel
Marleen S. Barr
Library of American Fiction
Terrace Books
An irreverent romp through the groves of academe with a fiercely
feminist—and husband-hunting—literary theorist
What would happen if a feminist Jewish wit and scholar invaded
David Lodge's territory? Marleen S. Barr, herself a pioneer in
the feminist criticism of science fiction, provides a giddily
entertaining answer in this feisty novel. Oy Pioneer!
follows professor Sondra Lear as she makes her inimitable way
through a world of learning—at times fantastic, at
times all too familiar, often hilarious, and always compulsively
interesting.
As if Mel Brooks and Erica Jong had joined forces to recreate
Sex and the City for the intellectual set, the story is
a heady mix of Jewish humor, feminist insight, and academic satire.
Lear is a tenured radical and a wildly ambitious intellectual,
but is subject nonetheless to the husband-hunting imperatives
of her Jewish mother. Her adventures expand narrative parameters
according to Barr's term "genre fission."
Mixing elements of science fiction, fantasy, ethnic comedy, satire,
and authentic experience of academic life, Oy Pioneer!
is uncommonly fun—a Jewish feminist scholar's imaginative
text boldly going where no academic satire has gone before—and
bringing readers along for an exhilarating ride.
"The novel is clearly written, often witty, and moves quickly
from scene to scene. It takes some familiar elements and gives
them a new twist through a blend of genres. It should appeal
to feminists, to academics, and to Jewish-American readers."
— SFRA Review March 2004, Taylors, SC
"This frothy novel spoofs the unlikely
combination of academia, feminism, Jewish mothers, Jewish humor,
and Barbara Bush, among others." — Morton I. Teicher,
founding dean of the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva
University , and Dean Emeritus, School of Social Work, University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Marleen S. Barr is Scholar in Residence at The Hadassah
Brandeis Institute, a feminist research institute located at
Brandeis University. Her many works include Genre Fission
and Feminist Fabulation and, as editor, Envisioning
the Future and the science fiction issue of the journal PMLA.
For more information regarding publicity
and reviews contact our publicity manager, Chris Caldwell, phone: (608) 263-0734,
email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu |
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September 2003
LC: 2003006232 PS
276 pp. 5 x 8 1/2
1 for the cover
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