For the Washington Post, I reviewed Marlen Haushofer’s Killing Stella. (I did not realize this had gone up until the
today… but I guess it only went up yesterday.) If you feel like maybe you’ve nearing capacity on slim translated novellas of female collapse, do you think you should still make space for Killing Stella? I believe yes, you should:“I have a deep suspicion of women who claim to be able to remove stains,” Anna, the narrator of the novella “Killing Stella,” tells us. “Either they’re lying or there’s something not quite right at home.” By the time Anna, a housewife, gets around to sharing this opinion, it’s clear she has enough going wrong at home to power several dry cleaners. Yet she can’t remove stains either. Go figure.
That said, if you’re only going to read one Haushofer book, you should read The Wall. That would be silly of you, but I can’t stop you from making bad choices. Friend of the newsletter
also reviewed Killing Stella, situating it among Haushofer’s other translated work and Haushofer’s broader historical context. (He’s got some further thoughts here.) Also notable, ’s for 4 Columns.Anyway, for the few, the proud who have read Killing Stella… two questions:
Richard gets Stella pregnant, right? That’s why there’s such an ominous miasma around his gynecologist friend, such that Stella is upset to see him in passing and Richard denies that they’re friends at all.
Anna sets Stella up for seduction because she’s afraid Stella will take away Wolfgang, right? That’s why she regards herself as one of Stella’s murders. But Wolfgang either sees through her here or else is in any case disgusted with her passivity before his father, so she loses him anyway.
Wow, everybody reviewed this book! That's good coverage, better than the average new directions reprint.