FOMITE

Feminist on Fire tells the harrowing story of Pam Kearon, a founding member of the radical feminist group, The Feminists, active in New York City during the 1960s and 1970s. She wrote “Man Hating,” and co-wrote "Rape: An Act of Terror.” Both essays were widely anthologized and translated. Pam was an abused child, later diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. For the last twenty-five years of her life, she lived in homes for adults with mental illness. Feminist on Fire (a novel) is a mosaic of memories that travels freely back and forth through time, and is based on the recollections and research of the author, her niece. Although Pam was healthy at times, her illness was an ever-present impediment to her extraordinary potential.

 

About the Author

Coleen Kearon has worked as a vocational and crisis counselor, a teacher, and an animal rights activist. She has a Master's degree in Writing from Goddard College, and her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Pif Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, and All Things Girl . This is her first novel. She lives in Montpelier, Vermont. 

 

Praise

“Coleen Kearon's bravely imagined family story tore me up. Her aunt's life, in all its energy and pain and contradictions, broke my heart while her novel stands as a powerful reminder: how often, how easily we dismiss someone — too angry, too crazy — when what we need to do is pay attention, listen with compassion, hear the truth.”

— Diane Lefer, award winning author of California Transit

 

“Feminist on Fire is a slim, fractured, and hauntingly visceral first novel. Kearon's prose is as muscular as the sun, illuminating the dark reaches of femininity and sexuality and strength from angles too often unseen. Structurally innovative, like life itself, Kearon's first novel is a powerhouse, a small miracle."

— Jessica Hendry Nelson, author of If Only You People Could Follow Directions