(I wrote the original version of this post in 2018; in 2025, I heavily revised it.)<\/p>\r\n
I\u2019ve now read all of Joanna Russ\u2019s fiction (published and un-), and nearly all of her published nonfiction. A couple of people who haven\u2019t read her work have recently asked me for recommendations for starting points, so here\u2019s an attempt to provide some. As with my Delany-starting-points<\/a> post from last year, I\u2019m dividing this into categories, depending on what you\u2019re interested in.<\/p>\r\n Most of Russ\u2019s novels are now available as ebooks, as is her best-known nonfiction book. Her short fiction, alas, is mostly not yet available in ebook form, and is mostly out of print; but most of it can be found in used copies from online used-book sellers.<\/p>\r\n Content warning: All of Russ\u2019s work can be oblique and painful. It can be hard to read both in the sense that it\u2019s not always clear what\u2019s going on if you don\u2019t pay close attention, and in the sense that it can result in emotional distress. There\u2019s lots of difficult stuff in her writing, including portrayals of sexism and misogyny and other bad behavior by men, dubious-consent sex, sexual violence and threats thereof, sexualizing of girls, arguably Islamophobia, and more.<\/p>\r\n Also worth noting: Russ was a lesbian, but unfortunately most of her fiction doesn\u2019t include lesbian characters. It includes quite a few heterosexual couples, and a few straight women who are interested in a gay man, and a few stories featuring some lesbian subtext, but not many women who are overtly interested in\/involved with other women. I mention this primarily to set your expectations, so you won\u2019t expect the women to end up as couples in most of her work. (If you do want overtly lesbian characters, see On Strike Against God<\/cite>, below.)<\/p>\r\n In case you're in a hurry, I'll start by saying that the short version of my recommendation is: Start with the Library of America book Joanna Russ: Novels & Stories<\/cite><\/b>, which is available only on paper, not as an ebook.<\/p>\r\n I feel like I should add a disclaimer: A lot of Russ\u2019s work is specifically about being a (white) woman in the US in the 1960s and 1970s. I am not part of the core audience for much of her work, and so my opinions about what makes a good starting point may be even less widely applicable than is usually the case when anyone makes recommendations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n I\u2019m a short-story fan, so of course I\u2019m going to recommend starting with Russ\u2019s short fiction.<\/p>\r\n Some specific suggestions:<\/p>\r\n Her other main collection, The Zanzibar Cat<\/cite>, is also worth reading but also a mixed bag; it wouldn\u2019t be a bad<\/em> starting point, but I would say the items above would be better. Also, Zanzibar Cat<\/cite> was published in two different editions with different contents, so you need both versions to see all of the stories collected under that title.<\/p>\r\n I have reason to hope that a complete-Russ-short-fiction ebook will be published at some point, but I don\u2019t know when. And even when it is, a complete volume of her 60+ short fiction pieces may not be a great starting point.<\/p>\r\n I\u2019ll say more about her other arguably-a-short-fiction-collection book, Extra(ordinary) People<\/cite>, below.<\/p>\r\n\r\n Depending on how you count, Russ wrote six or seven published novels. Six of them are now available as ebooks.<\/p>\r\n My recommendations for starting points:<\/p>\r\n I\u2019m less fond of Russ\u2019s other two best-known novels, And Chaos Died<\/cite> and We Who Are About To\u2026<\/cite> (The latter is included in the LoA volume.) Both are interesting, but I feel like they don\u2019t work as well as the above-listed books, and are less accessible to newcomers to Russ\u2019s work. But We Who Are About To\u2026<\/cite> was influential and provocative.<\/p>\r\n Russ also wrote a Middle Grade novella called Kittatinny: A Tale of Magic<\/cite>, which she described as being for children of all ages; to me, it reads as a sort of fairy-tale coming-of-age story.<\/p>\r\n And she considered her book Extra(ordinary) People<\/cite> to be a novel; I consider it to be a collection of unrelated short stories tied together very loosely with a framing device, but I feel like it\u2019s worth considering the author\u2019s wishes in deciding what to label a given work. Whether or not it\u2019s a novel, I like Extra(ordinary) People<\/cite>, but I wouldn\u2019t particularly recommend it as a starting point. But worth noting that the opening novella, \u201cSouls,\u201d won Russ her only Hugo award. (And that story is included in the Library of America volume.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n Russ was a prolific writer of essays and reviews. I think probably the best starting point for her nonfiction is her justly-acclaimed book How to Suppress Women\u2019s Writing<\/cite><\/b>, which is available in both print and ebook forms.<\/p>\r\n But there are also other options. For example:<\/p>\r\nShort stories<\/h3>\r\n
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Novels<\/h3>\r\n
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Nonfiction<\/h3>\r\n
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