Spotswood, Claire Myers
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1896-1983) Working name of US author Clairene Lenora Allen Myers Owens for her first novel, and only work of sf interest, The Unpredictable Adventure: A Comedy of Woman's Independence (1935), a Utopia told in allegorical language. The protagonist, Tellectina Femina Christian, abandons Smug Harbor in the Land of Err for the Forbidden Kingdom of Nithking, where the two personae signalled by her given names become separate but incomplete individuals. Only in an ideal society, where women are equal (Feminism) and Sex is explored deeply, can a full existence come into being. Some passages of the tale which focused on female anatomy, accompanied by a song to the vagina, proved controversial and the book was soon banned. In the end, the two aspects of the protagonist merge ecstatically. In her later years, Owen published several nonfiction volumes [not listed below] in which Psychology and Zen are merged, climaxing with Zen and the Lady: Memoirs – Personal and Transpersonal in a World in Transition (1979). [JC]
Clairene Lenora Allen Myers Owens
born Rockdale, Texas: 11 February 1896
died Rochester, New York: 7 May 1983
works (selected)
- The Unpredictable Adventure: A Comedy of Woman's Independence (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1935) [hb/]
links
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