Reading Groups

Fierce at 50: Feminist Novels of 1975 with Sullivan Summer

$180

4 Sessions

In stock

4 sessions Mondays, 6:30 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT October 20, 2025 to January 12, 2026

Online via Zoom

Add to Cart

Meeting Dates:
10/20, 11/17, 12/15, 1/12
Online via Zoom

Wheel of Fortune premieres on NBC. Bill Gates launches Microsoft. Fugitive Patty Hearst is captured. Saigon falls. It is 1975, and four women write four novels challenging freedom, fear, and expectations of the feminine. But whose expectations? That is just one of the questions we’ll explore in our discussions of these four novels, still fierce at 50.

In Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero, we will meet a woman held at an Egyptian prison, while the metaphorical prison in Bharati Mukherjee’s Wife is her own home. Gayl Jones introduces us to a Kentucky blues singer grappling with how her past has shaped her present in Corregidora (edited by Toni Morrison while at Random House). And, to cite the New York Times, Judith Rossner’s Looking for Mr. Goodbar speaks to the question: How much control do women have over their own lives? Fifty years later, what would our answer be?

What to read in advance of the first meeting: Please read Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner in its entirety.

What to expect from this reading group: A lively, participant-led discussion. The instructor (who will herself turn darn near close to 50 this year and is still very fierce) will provide supplemental and background information as relevant.

Reading List:

Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
Corregidora by Gayl Jones
Wife by Bharati Mukherjee

Please note: All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.

Led by

Sullivan Summer

Sullivan Summer

Sullivan Summer is a former attorney and corporate executive who now devotes her time to all things literary. She enjoys interviewing authors for the New Books Network and Adoptees On podcasts. She has presented scholarship on Black poetics at Jackson State University, published across genres in several literary journals, and is a past participant of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Tin House Workshop, and Cave Canem. Her chapbook Performance Anxiety is available from Black Sunflowers Poetry Press.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

Groups+Workshops

More Groups+Workshops

Groups+Workshops