Review_NONFICTION
50 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 4, 2019
Review_NONFICTION
sought by writers. The letters are fol-
lowed by more considered essays from
each contributor written a few years later,
including Emre’s on what Ferrante’s deci-
sion to remain pseudonymous says about
the nature of authorship. Several guest
writers also contribute their thoughts in
an appendix. The combination of intellec-
tual rigor and personal reaction makes
this fascinating reading for Ferrante fans.
(Jan.)Fireflies
Luis Sagasti, trans. from the Spanish by Fionn
Petch. Charco, $13.95 trade paper (86p)
ISBN 978-1-9997227-4-6
Argentinian writer and critic Sagasti
(Maelstrom) presents a genre-defying col-
lection of associative musings on art,
music, philosophy, and literature, centered
on the theme of flight. The book’s title is
a metaphor encompassing the luminaries
Sagasti weaves into this conversation—
Kurt Vonnegut surviving the horrors of
war to write Slaughterhouse-Five, haiku
master Matsuo Basho making a pil-
grimage through 17th-century Japan,
Wittgenstein creating his masterwork,
the Tractatus,
while serving
in the Austrian
army during
WWI.
Addressing
flight in a literal
context, Sagasti
chronicles the
story of
Brazilian priest
Adelir de Carli,
who died in 2008 after launching himself
skyward in a chair strapped to a thousand
helium balloons, and of a German fighter
pilot who claimed to have shot down
author-aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
in 1944 and never forgave himself for
killing “the Little Prince” (conflating
Saint-Exupéry with his most famous
character). Sagasti displays a remarkable
gift for identifying what makes an artist
distinctive, such as how the skill of haiku
writers “lies in discovering the reverse
side of the word even while writing it cor-
rectly.” His meandering journey through
the arts may not suit all tastes, but readers
willing to approach it for what it is—
essentially, a book-length prose poem—education, and world affairs. In subse-
quent editorships at the Delineator, the
New York Herald Tribune Sunday maga-
zine, and This Week, Meloney helped
newly enfranchised women become
informed voters; cultivated professional
relationships with presidents and first
ladies; made
Marie Curie a
household name
in the U.S.; and
educated
Americans
about European
fascism.
Crediting her
subject with
“propell[ing]
other women
into prominence and women’s issues into
public discourse,” Des Jardins makes a
convincing case for Meloney’s crucial role
in showing American women how to flex
their political muscle. Readers interested
in women’s issues will find this to be a
valuable contribution to the subject.
(Jan.)The Ferrante Letters: An
Experiment in Collective Criticism
Sarah Chihaya et al. Columbia Univ., $25
(280p) ISBN 978-0-231-19457-0
As this thoughtful and thought-pro-
voking compilation records, over the
summer of 2015 four English professors
decided to try out a new approach to
criticism. Seeking to carry out a flexible,
“permeable” dialogue instead of solitary
study, Chihaya, Merve Emre, Katherine
Hill, and Jill Richards (from, respectively,
Princeton, Oxford, Adelphi, and Yale),
settled on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan
Quartet. In hopes of “encoding the inti-
mate labor of conversation as part of a
scholarly work,” they exchanged letters
recording their responses, both intellec-
tual and visceral, to reading Ferrante’s
epic tale of female friendship in post-
WWII Italy (“Oh Nino,” Richards
laments of one character, “why are you
such a tool?”). Ferrante’s stylistic choices
produce debates about narrator reliability,
the erasure of women from public spaces,
and the tension, in Emre’s words, between
the “incessant need to minister to another
human being” experienced by mothers
and the “unbroken time and seclusion”“equality of
opportunity”
to a “hard”
program that
set quotas in
order to obtain
“equality of
results.” Urofsky
traces the causes
of the shift to
efforts by civil
rights leaders,
politicians, and business interests to
“reverse the legacy of Jim Crow.”
Though “numbers-driven plan[s]” can
be effective, Urofsky writes, they fuel
charges of “reverse discrimination” and
undermine the idea that minority candi-
dates can succeed on their own merits.
Urofsky analyzes the Supreme Court’s
stance (strict quotas are unconstitu-
tional; “holistic” practices that consider
an applicant’s minority status among
other factors are legal) and tracks how
politicians have used affirmative action
as a “wedge issue.“ His evenhanded
approach provides essential historical
context, but few definitive answers on
the efficacy of affirmative action. Readers
with a strong connection to the issue will
appreciate this judicious deep dive.
Agent: Nick Mullendore, Vertical Ink
Agency. (Jan.)American Queenmaker:
How Missy Meloney Brought
Women into Politics
Julie Des Jardins. Basic, $32 (384p) ISBN 978-
1-5416-4549-3
Historian Des Jardins (Walter Camp:
Football and the Modern Man) unearths the
power and influence of early 20th-century
editor Marie “Missy” Mattingly Meloney
(1878–1943) in this competent and pur-
poseful biography. Born in Kentucky,
Meloney came of age in Washington,
D.C., where her widowed mother opened
a school for girls. Despite lifelong health
problems, Meloney became a newspaper
reporter at the turn of the century. After
marrying fellow reporter William Brown
Meloney IV and working part-time as she
raised their son, Meloney became man-
aging editor of Woman’s Magazine in 1914
and set out to replace the publication’s
“twaddle” with articles written by experts
in such varied fields as housekeeping,