The Wrong Kind of Woman by Sarah McCraw Crow

The Wrong Kind of Woman

Meet the Author

SARAH McCRAW CROW’s articles and short stories have run in many magazines and literary journals. She’s a graduate of Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she lives on an old farm in New Hampshire with her family. The Wrong Kind of Woman is her first novel. Learn more…

Sarah McCraw Crow

sarahmccrawcrow

This is one of the photos that I turned to for a k

This is one of the photos that I turned to for a kind of inspiration when I was writing The Wrong Kind of Woman. This photo was taken in the early 70s, soon after Dartmouth College began admitting a small number of women. Dartmouth men, and many alums, and some faculty, made their displeasure loudly known known; the men in Russell Sage dorm hung NO COEDS banners, black flags, and window signs.(See second photo for closer view.)

From the vantage point of 2021, this photo is quaint, the men’s actions childish and even kind of cute. But Dartmouth men were the opposite of welcoming to Dartmouth’s first women. Looking at photos like these from Dartmouth College’s archives helped me visualize a fictional all-male campus in the early 70s, a campus that is not Dartmouth College, but has a lot in common with it.

Incidentally, I lived in this very same dorm for my freshman and sophomore years, about 12 years later, and I wonder what those guys would have thought of my coed friend group. But I’m glad I didn’t know about those banners back then.

Photo from Rauner Library, Special Collections, Dartmouth College.

For World Book Day, library books! I picked up two

For World Book Day, library books! I picked up two books from the library, and also took a photo of my own book on the shelf—still a thrill.

British writer Ellie Eaton’s debut novel The Divines gives us Josephine, coming to terms with her years at the posh but now closed boarding school St. John the Divine. In her thirties and newly married, Josephine visits the campus and begins to remember that secret-filled year. It’s a dual-timeline novel that moves between the present and the 90s.

Marie Benedict’s The Mystery of Mrs. Christie explores the puzzling two weeks in 1926 when Agatha Christie disappeared from her own life; the novel moves between the perspectives of Agatha and husband Archie, the prime suspect, and between the couple’s first years together, and 1926.

And swipe to see the little display my town’s librarians made for my book, which always thrills me when I see it. Canterbury’s library is small but mighty, with a dedicated staff, and I miss hanging out there.

Happy pub day to debut authors @sarah_penner_autho

Happy pub day to debut authors @sarah_penner_author and @heatherkfrese! These are two very different debut novels, but look how striking both covers are!

@sarah_penner_author’s The Lost Apothecary is a dual-timeline historical mystery set in London, with an 18th-century narrative and a present-day narrative. In the late 18th century, secretive apothecary Nella carries out her work providing poison to women who’ve been wronged by the men in her life, and develops an unexpected friendship with a young girl; in the present day, the dejected Caroline, an American visiting London, stumbles onto a related mystery.

@heatherkfrese’s The Baddest Girl on the Planet is a literary coming-of-age novel about Evie Austin, set partly on Hatteras Island, NC. It has something of the feel of a linked story collection, and it’s full of voice and humor. (The novel also reminds me a little of Katie Crouch’s first novel Girls in Trucks.) The Baddest Girl on the Planet also won the Lee Smith Novel Prize! Lee Smith, swoon…. (Review to come.)

Still catching up on 2020 reading. It’s been a l

Still catching up on 2020 reading. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a Sue Miller novel; I think While I Was Gone was the last one. Her new novel, Monogamy, came out this fall. It’s the story of the long marriage of Annie and Graham, through several perspectives, but mainly that of of Annie, the quiet, more reserved partner to the gregarious, larger-than-life Graham. Graham owns a bookstore in Cambridge, and when the novel opens, Annie and Graham are getting ready for a reading and dinner party. (Actually, the novel’s first line is “Annie had been single for seven years when she met Graham,” so we spend some time in the past, and in summary, before getting to the present.) Graham’s having an affair, and trying to get out of it. Not long after this revelation, Graham dies of a heart attack. This isn’t really a spoiler—the novel’s publicity mentions it. The rest of the novel is the aftermath—how Annie copes, and grieves, and what happens when she learns about the affair. The narrative also moves into the POV of daughter Sarah, first wife Frieda, and Lucas, son of Graham and Frieda.

It’s a very Sue Miller novel. Meditative, lots of interiority, beautiful passages of summary of their past—the swinging Cambridge of the early 70s, for instance. If you’ve read this novel, let me know! I feel the need to talk to someone about one of the characters, or rather the relationship between two of the characters!

Winter light, late February. We’ve had a beautif

Winter light, late February. We’ve had a beautiful winter, but I’m ready to move on now. New Hampshire probably has other ideas, though.

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News & Events

Virtual Event: A Conversation with Amanda Brainerd, author of Age of Consent

Hosted by Read It Again Books

February 27, 6 pm EST. I’ll be in conversation with Amanda Brainerd, author of the debut novel Age of Consent. We’ll talk about writing our debut novels, and about the lives of women and girls in the 1970s and 1980s. Hosted by Kim McNamara at Read It Again Books! You can watch and join the chat on Read It Again’s livestream.

Hope you can join us!

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