A 30-year-old virgin named Fortune Dundee moves into a swinging-singles L.A. apartment complex in Cynthia Buchanan’s 1972 debut novel Maiden. Newly reissued by Hagfish Books, this strange, post-modern work was once positioned in relation to The Bell Jar and Play It as It Lays as a comic triumph of feminist prose. Though Lily Tomlin and Robert Altman nearly collaborated on a film version in the Seventies, that prospect — and the book’s popularity — eventually hit the skids. Hagfish founders Julia Ringo and Naomi Huffman join us to discuss what makes Buchanan’s cleverly-crafted work such an obvious candidate for recovery.
Mentioned in this episode:
**Free online book club discussion of Maiden hosted by The Sitting Room Library. Register here.
Maiden by Cynthia Buchanan
Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 298 on Nettie Jones
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Toad by Katherine Dunn
Near Flesh: Stories by Katherine Dunn
To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler
The Cosmopoliton Girl by Rosalyn Drexler
Three Women by Robert Altman
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
A Woman Under the Influence by Robert Altman
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Sitting Room Library Reading Group for Cynthia Buchanan’s Maiden
Man Hating Psycho by Iphiginia Baal