Set in the late 1980s, with New York City in the middle of a real estate crash, 𝑳𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑾𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏 chronicles the lives of five urban women as well as an activist organization comprised of women in the art world, the Living Dolls.

𝑳𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒔 is a fast-paced novel of a time and place in transition and of the women who live there, the indignities and furies of cultural misogyny, and the many ways women live in, adapt to, and rail against it.

Highly recommended, 𝑳𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒔 is both riveting and skillfully crafted. It’s a feminist novel of love, murder and gender discrimination. If you’re a fan of the SoHo art scene in 1980s New York that’s a bonus! This is such a unique novel; I loved it.


𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓

Montana Katz is a psychoanalyst. She has written two novels (Side Effects: A Footloose Journey to the Apocalypse and Clytemnestra’s Last Day ), a play (adapted from Clytemnestra’s Last Day by the same name), books on psychoanalysis (Contemporary Psychoanalytic Field Theory: Stories, Dreams and Metaphor and Metaphor and Fields: Common Ground, Common Language, and the Future of Psychoanalysis), and two award-winning books on gender bias (The Gender Bias Prevention Book and, with co-author Veronica Vieland, Get Smart: What You Need To Know But Won't Learn In Class About Sexual Harassment And Sex Discrimination. Her writing is situated at the confluence of fact, history and the unconscious.


A huge thank you to @NetGalley and @GuernicaEditions for a DRC of 𝑳𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑾𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏 by S. Montana Katz.

A contemporary review of men behaving badly and having to answer for it. A chronicle of five lives , women offering a broad spectrum of experience in the world of men. An engaging look at perception colors action and the results of inaction at times. A must for women’s studies on any campus and classroom.

I love the idea of a book telling stories about women in the '80's art world, and I think the stories of misogyny are important ones. The idea of making it a collection of short stories is great on one hand, because it shows how wide-spread certain problems were - they were <i>and are</i> not just one person having the wrong encounter, they are several micro- and macro-agressions interwoven in the very fabric of society.

On the other hand, I do not feel the concept of short stories is executed as well as it could have been in this collection. They were too short, too fast. Perhaps they are stronger when you already have knowledge of and experience with the 1980's New York art world (or if you have lived in the 1980's for more than the five years I have lived in that decade, or in New York, or if you are artistically inclined, and are more aware of the surrounding issues). For a relative noob like me, it is like I am dropped into a setting, and before I know where I am, the scene is already over and done with. It feels like I miss the punch line all the time.

The writing style is not quite my thing either. It is very descriptive in a matter-of-fact way. This on one hand draws the attention to the descriptions too much for someone like me, because I'm trying to get my bearings in the story, and on the other hand it made even the shortest stories with the most important message, seem dullish.

I think the solution to both problems would be to make the actual time line a bit longer, make the characters actually do and say more, give us readers a bit more time to connect to them - and keep the stories from getting too long by cutting out a lot of fluff and unnecessary descriptions. This collection of short stories would then be perfect.

2,5 stars upped to 3, because I think these stories should get the chance to be read apart from how well they are written.