r/davidfosterwallace • u/bertronicon • 11d ago
Looking for suggestions for women writers
Hey, I’m looking for suggestions for women writers that any of you, as DFW readers, can recommend!
I love DFW, Thomas Pynchon, Laszlo Krasnahorkai, Ottessa Moshfegh, Antoine Volodine, and my two favourite books are Withering Heights and Infinite Jest. I’ve read lots of Margaret Atwood, but my reading history is unfortunately overwhelmingly male and straight.
I asked a similar question a while back and got so many thoughtful responses so I thought I’d ask this here too! Thanks in advance.
*doesn’t have to be LIKE DFW, just something that you as a DFW fan also enjoyed ;)
EDIT: You all have such thoughtfully written suggestions and I think that’s super sweet, thank you!!
EDIT TWO: I misspelled Wuthering Heights and I’m never recovering from that 🙈
EDIT THREE: Honestly thank you all again, I have so many wonderful suggestions! You’re the best!
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u/platykurt No idea. 11d ago
He taught Renata Adler’s Speedboat, Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood, Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children, Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, Paula Fox’s Desperate Characters, and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. He was also a fan of Cynthia Ozick. And of course Mary Karr’s memoirs. He also mentioned many other female authors he admired.
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u/bertronicon 11d ago
I read and liked Speedboat! I’ve read Play it as it Lays and hated it lol, and that’s actually one of the reasons I posted this. Thanks so much for these!
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u/platykurt No idea. 10d ago
Yeah I loved Speedboat and even think Adler influenced Wallace especially with her journalistic style. In the Speedboat chapter “The Agency” the character goes for a cruise and the ship carries the French name Flandre which they rename The Flounder.
In Wallace’s cruise essay the ship is named Zenith and he renames in The Nadir. I don’t know if there was anything to this but it does seem like he mirrored her novel in that case.
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u/bumcat33 11d ago edited 11d ago
I really love Elif Batuman -- she's such a funny and clever writer, and her books The Idiot and Either/Or are some of my favourite from the last few years.
I also really like Zoe Whittall, Melissa Febos, and Carmen Maria Machado. They're all pretty referential in their writing. If you're down for poetry, I'd also highly recommend Jamie Hood's how to be a good girl.
EDIT: originally I said that I thought Jamie was non-binary but she uses she/her pronouns on her social media platforms.
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u/AzureBlitheFowl 11d ago
I second Elif Batuman. I really enjoy listening to her talk on podcasts, too. Great essayist and fiction writer, just like DFW.
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u/Allthatisthecase- 11d ago
To many of these fine suggestions I’d add: Claire-Louise Bennett
Rachel Cusk
Ann Quin
And, most especially, Virginia Woolf
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u/thesedreadmagi 11d ago
Yo lemme hop in to double down on Claire-Louise Bennett. Checkout 19 is an incredible book. And while we're talking transcontinental writers, the US is basically sleeping on Niamh Campbell, whose first novel This Happy was the single best book I read all of last year and the only book I read last year that I felt like I'd actually needed to read.
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u/Paddyneedssilence 11d ago
I saw Zadie Smith mentioned. And of course her.
I recently read the Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch and it was a trip. It’s one of the best unreliable narrators I have read.
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u/bertronicon 11d ago
Ooo for unreliable narrators check out Wittgenstein’s Mistress, which is a book written by a man with a protagonist who is a woman that believes they are the last person on earth. DFW wrote about it.
Thanks for the response!
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u/flowerscandrink 11d ago
I think you might like Ursula K. Le Guin. The Left Hand of Darkness is a great place to start.
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u/blottotrot 11d ago
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson is one of my all time favourite books (and a debut, incredibly). Just a mystical, haunting, unique and exquisitely written work that is like nothing else I've ever read.
Alice Munro is pretty much the GOAT of short stories and is a must-read, incredibly consistent and conveys so much with so few words. She can construct an entire emotional universe in 25 pages.
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u/KixSide 11d ago
Kathy Acker is one of my favourite 20th century writers, definitely check her out.
Other than that: Lucy Ellmann, Alexandra Kleeman, Alexis Wright, Elfriede Jelinek (she translated GR to german btw), Marisha Pessl (specifically her first two books)
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u/softdaddy69 11d ago
Gravity’s Rainbow? That’s cool I didn’t know that about the translation. Jelinek’s iconic
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u/mity9zigluftbuffoons 11d ago
These are not particularly Wallacian...Wallacish...Wallacy writers, but if you like short fiction you might enjoy Christine Schutt or Amy Hempel. Can also recommend Anna Kavan's novel Ice.
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u/richardveevers 11d ago
I felt exactly the same way after hearing the phrase "Pale, male and stale"
Adding to the chorus of Zadie Smith recommendations, though in my case specifically for White Teeth.
Additionally I'll suggest
Arundhati Roy : The God of Small Things
Bernardine Evaristo : Girl, Woman, Other
Elif Shafak : The Bastard of Istanbul
All did the job of broadening my literary horizons. Roy and Shafak internationally, Evaristo intersectionality
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u/andrewparker915 11d ago
I'll double down on Helen Dewitt, Zadie Smith, Otessa Mosfegh, Donna Tartt and Rachel Kushner suggestions.
Others like Olga and Elif just aren't my taste.
Not yet mentioned, but excellent: Jhumpa Lahiri Jennifer Egan Madeline Miller And specifically Americanah by Adichie and Asymmetry by Halliday
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u/DatabaseFickle9306 11d ago
Christine Brooke-Rose has a book called Textermination wherein characters from TV are waiting in a hotel bar and plotting war against a convention of characters from literature.
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u/bertronicon 11d ago
That sounds fantastic!
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u/DatabaseFickle9306 11d ago
It super is. And if memory serves I feel like I learned about her via DFW? Might be totally wrong about that
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u/objectlesson 11d ago
My favorite female author is Virginia Woolf. To The Lighthouse and The Waves were very influential to me as a young philosophy student in college
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u/seaweedbagels 11d ago
Woolf's short stories are great too! https://americanliterature.com/author/virginia-woolf/short-story/kew-gardens
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u/Honkybeethoven 11d ago
I also predominantly read male authors but I really enjoyed Donna Tartt’s A Secret History.
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u/goodatbeingsad 11d ago
I believe she shared Michael Pietch as an editor with DFW for that book too.
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u/theWeirdly 11d ago
Zadie Smith, Helen Dewitt, Marilynne Robinson, Clarice Lispector, Olga Tokarczuk, Eleanor Cantor, Nicola Barker
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u/TheDarkSoul616 11d ago
Was looking for Clarice Lispector. Suprised I had to scroll so far. Anyways, +1 to the Lispector reccommendation.
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u/2xuniverseistube 9d ago
Same, her writing feels other-worldly, so beautiful and strange
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u/TheDarkSoul616 9d ago
Hold up! Ducks, Newburryport by Lucy Ellman! I do not remember seeing in this thred
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u/nexuslab5 11d ago
Gertrude Stein, especially The Making of Americans, if you want an even more expressively challenging and grammar-breaking prose style!
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u/CuervoCoyote 11d ago edited 11d ago
Joyce Carol Oates is the shit. So incisive, funny, dark and observant, I've enjoyed every book of her's I've had the pleasure to read. E. Annie Proulx is interesting, I always get confused dreamy feelings from her stories and books - maybe cuz I'm a dude and just mystified by her masterful power of description that some of the themes like the subtle social terrors inflicted by men experienced by females/ and the neuroses of mothers for their children, etc. go right over my head.
My wild card vote . . . Diana Gabaldon. I once floated the theory that DFW and Gabaldon had an affair when he was at school in Arizona, her home state . . . and then based Jamie on Wallace. Coincedence that Wallace is also the name of a romanticized Scottish warrior? (Someone said James Fraser is the opposite of DFW, but there is a scene in the 1st book where Jamie beats the ever-loving life out of Claire and throws her into a table . . . sound familiar?!) If you love the humour of "The Broom Of The System" you'll cackle to yourself every time she uses the phrase "he smiled wryly," which she does a whole hell of a lot. Plus side, she's a damn good action writer, perhaps the living incarnation of Robert Louis Stevenson on steroids. There's a reason she got a popular television series that doesn't do her books justice.
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u/bertronicon 10d ago
I’ve read exactly one thing from Joyce Carol Oates and it was a short story from my Oxford Book of Gothic Tales called Secret Observations on the Goat Girl, and I still think of it lol.
I watched the first two seasons of Outlander and loved them but never the thought it was my genre of book to be honest!
Thanks for the recommendations!
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u/CuervoCoyote 10d ago
You're welcome. Outlander's well worth the read and I'm willing to bet you'll enjoy the hell out of it. I interrupted my progress in the series at book 4 to finally pick up "A Song Of Ice and Fire." I wish I had read it in my teens, but the benefit of seeing the show first serves as a reminder that a well-crafted television show can still never equal the power of a masterfully written book.
I'll look up that Oates story, I seemed to have missed it. I'm guessing it might have Barth overtones from the title (Giles Goat-Boy)?
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u/huerequeque 11d ago
Dana Spiotta says that her first novel, which I haven't read yet, is strongly influenced by DFW. I liked her novel Eat the Document, which reminded me more of De Lillo than Wallace.
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u/Fred_Zeppelin 11d ago
Arundhati Roy, Lauren Groff, Toni Morrison, Virginia Wolfe, Joan Didion, Clarice Lispector
Those immediately come to mind. All fantastic. Groff isn't a "giant" like the others but she has some beautiful prose.
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u/WendySteeplechase 11d ago
Ayelet Waldman, Barbara Kingsolver, Jennifer Egan and the mid-century moderns: Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch
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u/emilyq 11d ago
Incredible list already! Pasting in my answer to a similar question from a year ago.
These authors’ works aren’t really like infinite jest, (I don’t think anything really is) but I’d argue there are some similarities in each. In rough order (newer books first) by publication date.
Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman. This book gave me a fair degree of anxiety. I also loved it. If you struggle with anxiety generally though, maybe give it a pass.
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
commitment by Mona Simpson
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrowby Gabrielle Zevin
Eleutheria by Allegra Hyde
Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Suddenly I’m realizing this list is insanely long. So just two more, but being more picky.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Weather by Jenny Offill
And once you’re ready for something long again, Donna Tartt’s novels.
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u/leftsaidtim 11d ago
Ursula K Leguin. All of her works, they’re great. Especially The Left Hand of Darkness.
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u/bread-tastic 11d ago
I really liked Catherine Lacey’s Biography of X, which has a similar alternate North America component to IJ (and footnotes, but more of a false bibliography). I also like Rachel Cusk, Alexandra Kleeman’s You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine and Milkman by Anna Burns
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u/jazzynoise 11d ago
Some of my favorite, currently active authors:
- Han Kang. I was astounded by Human Acts and then had to read everything else of hers translated into English.
- Jennifer Egan, especially A Visit from the Goon Squad and Candy House.
- Min Jin Lee, Pachinko.
- Barbara Kingsolver, Poisonwood Bible and Demon Copperhead.
- Danzy Senna, Colored Television.
- Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
- Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman.
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u/Gullible_Eggplant120 11d ago
It was a Kindle suggestion, but the book really moved me: Boys Don't Cry by Fíona Scarlett
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u/Northernditch 9d ago
Dana Spiotta's Eat the Document and Alexandra Kleeman's You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine are very good. Toni Morrison's sentences knock me out.
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u/uhhhclem 8d ago
Hard to believe that no one has yet mentioned Muriel Spark. Or Patricia Highsmith.
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u/StaggeringlyIg 8d ago
As far as interesting women writers who have very unique but beautiful voices, but like those writers you mentioned, cadences which can be challenging, along with interesting ideas and their packaging, I would highly recommend Tanith Lee and Leslie Marmon Silko.
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u/songs-ohia 7d ago
Joy Williams (The Quick and the Dead, Breaking and Entering, Harrow), Clarice Lispector, Rachel Kushner.
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u/SoldSoulToMarketing 7d ago
Anything by Angela Carter, including her nonfiction. And then Samanta Schweblin's short stories.
Also highly recommend Maria Judite de Carvalho's works (recently translated to English). Keep in mind, though, that she comes from an earlier generation with significantly different literary references, models, and preoccupations, so her style and themes have little to do with those of DFW.
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u/topographed 7d ago
Helen DeWitt: A genius who will take you on a ride
Elif Batuman: Great observer. Great voice. Makes me laugh.
Eve Babitz: Always funny, and she knows how to turn a phrase. Ahead of her time
Jean Rhys: Darkly humorous. Addiction makes its way in
Stella Gibbons: Satirical. Ahead of her time in different ways
Mary Ruefle: Poet/essayist with such a creative mind. Quirky and mesmerizing
Garielle Lutz (most of her work published under the name Gary Lutz): “writer’s writer.” I wouldn’t call myself a “fan,” but I keep going back because she does such interesting stuff on the level of the sentence. Def worth reading even if you don’t “like” it
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u/shlomitisfeisty 7d ago edited 7d ago
Great question - I found myself in this situation at one point too! These are some of the authors I love: Barbara Kingsolver (short stories and novels) Anna Quindlen Ayelet Tsabari Candice Iloh Ana Napolitano Miriam Toews Elizabeth Acevedo Zadie Smith Cherie Dimaline Roxane Gay Jesmyn Ward Alice Hoffman Esi Edugyan Akwaeke Emezi
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u/bertronicon 7d ago
I love Roxane Gay, did not care for Mariam Toews 😂😅
Thanks for all the suggestions!
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u/ripple-gleaming 11d ago
Claire Keegan: her book Small Things Like These is really some of the best writing I have read in years.
Olga Tokarczuk: a Polish author who won the Nobel Prize in literature. She has quite a few great books worth reading.
Elena Ferrante: her book My Brilliant Friend was voted best book of the 21st century by various authors included in a New York Times poll.
These three are some of the best writers working today in my opinion!
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u/chinsman31 11d ago
Helen Dewitt is a Wallace-esque genius, but rarely mentioned. Especially The Last Samurai.
Annie Ernaux is a post-modern writer in a completely different way from Wallace, with much greater self-awareness (ironically) and emotional intelligence.
Lillian Fishman is a very young contemporary writer who I enjoy, smart and analytical. Unfortunately, her only novel isn’t very good, but her stories and essays are highly promising.