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Published May 2007
192 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
In this powerful new book, Sara Paretsky explores the traditions of political and literary dissent that have informed her life and work, against the unparalleled repression of free speech and thought in the USA today. In tracing the writer's difficult journey from silence to speech, she turns to her childhood and youth in rural Kansas, and brilliantly evokes Chicago—the city with which she has become indelibly associated—from her arrival during the civil-rights struggle in the mid-1960s to her most extraordinary literary creation, the south-side detective V. I. Warshawski. Paretsky traces the emergence of V. I. Warshawski from the shadows of the loner detectives that stalk the mean streets of Dashiell Hammett's and Raymond Chandler's novels, and in the process explores American individualism, the failure of the American dream, and the resulting dystopia.
"Paretsky's informed views illuminate her fiction and add dimension to discussions of the political responsibilities of the artist." - PW.
"Written with graceful economy,Writing in an Age of Silence is an urgent cry for dissent and a powerful reminder that liberties taken for granted may someday not be granted at all." - Booklist.
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Before there was Lisbeth Salander or Stephanie Plum, there was V.I. Warshawski. Sara Paretsky revolutionized the mystery world in 1982 when she introduced V.I. in Indemnity Only. By creating a believable investigator with the grit and the smarts to tackle problems on the mean streets, Paretsky challenged a genre in which women typically were either vamps or victims. Hailed by critics and readers, Indemnity Only was followed by nineteen more best-selling Warshawski novels. The New York Times writes that Paretsky "always makes the top of the list when people talk about female operatives," while Publishers Weekly says, "Among today's PIs, nobody comes close to Warshawski."
Called "passionate" and "electrifying," V.I. reflects her creator's own passion for social justice. As a contributor ...
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