THE FEMALE ROGUE

Jackson celebrates female self-empowerment in this debut memoir.

While visiting Florence’s famed Accademia and Uffizi galleries (home to Michelangelo’s David), the author was struck by the stark differences between artistic depictions of men versus women. “I feel suffocated by the male gaze,” she writes, describing her discomfort with celebrations of “male divinity and violent conquer” juxtaposed with “sexualized and subservient females.” Jackson writes that this trip compounded the trauma she suffered related to the unexpected death of her brother and the murders of her colleagues in the attempted assassination of her friend, congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. After experiencing a vivid dream featuring the women from the Uffizi Gallery, the author endeavored to reclaim her authentic self by “going rogue.” Celebrating self-empowerment and the figure of the female rogue (an archetype in which “every inch of female existence is unbound, beautiful, and lived”), the memoir blends anecdotes from Jackson’s life with sociocultural commentary on women and gender in the Western world. Her stories include her experiences with puberty (“Estrogen comes attached with what feels like a thousand eyes that latch onto my body”) and her sexual awakening as a 24-year-old married woman when she had an affair that exposed the cracks in her failing marriage. The book is formally inventive, interspersing the author’s raw autobiographical passages (which range from tragic reflections on violence to spicy recountings of sexual escapades) with letters to recipients that include both real people and her own clitoris (a letter to the author’s mother is told from the perspective of a newborn recalling the “Eden” of her mom’s womb, poignantly concluding, “We are a prayer my heart never forgets”). While Jackson’s prose is often conversational, the text occasionally references classical art and literary characters. An essayist whose work has been featured in the Boston Globe and other nationally syndicated newspapers, Jackson is a skilled writer who effectively connects her personal experiences to a powerful message: Going rogue, the author asserts, “assures us we hold the power and tools of change inside our mysterious and wondrous female bodies.”

A compelling memoir of female resistance, resilience, and agency.