Thursday, August 23, 2007

Grace Paley, 1922-2007

Yes, she was that great.

It seems significant, somehow, that Tillie Olsen and Grace Paley died within months of each other. Perhaps because I see them both on my mother's bookshelves; perhaps because they so laboriously yet seamlessly melded motherhood, politics, and literature; perhaps because we live in post-feminist, wartime days the likes of which I'm sure they'd hoped never to see again.

I'll not say who I hope does not follow them, for fear of setting the evil eye on her, but luckily we still have one more.

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