“Attempting to diminish women by name-calling is nothing new,” notes Sandi Toksvig in her introduction to Virago’s 50th birthday anthology. Founded to counteract the under-representation of female writers, Virago has become a publishing powerhouse. Yet the public discourse and the online treatment of women grow ever more aggressive. I’m not sure this anthology can harness the power of a Siren or a Spitfire (to give two sample story titles) to stem the tide, but it’s certainly fun.
Furies is a starry collection, with new stories by four-time Booker-nominated Ali Smith, Emma Donoghue – whose novel Room was adapted into a hit Hollywood film – Margaret Atwood and Women’s prize for fiction-winner Kamila Shamsie, among others. Most of the titles – rather vintage-seeming gendered insults – have a degree of ambiguity baked in, perhaps even a lurking admiration for the distinctive, unpredictable woman. Who wouldn’t be somewhat flattered to be called a Warrior, a Fury, a Dragon or even a She-Devil? Other stories take on the Wench, Hussy and Tygress – the latter in a lovely piece by Claire Kohda, whose narrator’s beloved mother is a tiger who would “always give me a long kiss on the forehead … and her whiskers would tickle my eyelids.”
