California writers Book

A valuable reference book and mini-manifesto on all things female and experimental up to 1989. The editors’ impassioned essay that opens the volume is the finest thing here, alongside Brooke-Rose’s ‘Illiterations’ and Larry McAffrey’s ‘The Artists of Hell’ on Kathy Acker. The rest is of varying interest and tends towards the tediously academic, and some of the authors chosen for discussion are eye-rolling (Joyce Carol Oh-Noates and Marguerite Drearass), otherwise the choices are to be commended.