Five books that recall the surreal (and sociopathic?) 1990s in America

Candice Wuehle is the author of the novel Monarch as well as three collections of poetry. She is also a co-author of Collected Voices in the Expanded Field.

Wuehle holds an MA in literature from the University of Minnesota as well as an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She earned a doctorate in Creative Writing at The University of Kansas, where she was the recipient of a Chancellor's Fellowship. Her studies focus on the relationship between trauma, memory, and the occult.

Originally from Iowa City, Iowa, Wuehle lives in Roanoke, Virginia.

At Lit Hub she tagged "five books that remember [the 1990s] and offer up their own resistance to its commercial and patriarchal values," including:

Ariel Gore, We Were Witches

Christened “Ariel” by a mother who claims she wanted her daughter to “pass for a man on paper,” Ariel Gore is nevertheless certain she is actually named after Plath’s masterpiece. This titular tension mirrors the larger struggle of living as a single mother (who also happens to be a writer) in a society overwhelmingly dominated by the first Bush administration’s patriarchal control of single mothers’ economic and reproductive rights. We Were Witches enters “the soft, feathery war between art and motherhood” armed with the writings of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Kathy Acker—as well as a little magic. From “spells to prevail in family court” to an occult ritual initiated by an angelic Adrienne Rich herself, We Were Witches is both a sharp feminist critique of the early 90s and a delightful, bewitching celebration of art, women, and community.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue