Mary is the main character in It’s a Wonderful Life! Tell me I am wrong! She fixes his terrible decisions every time and is the one solving every problem, shielding the children from his rage and petulance, and letting him take the credit. I hate that movie. I think I’ve lost the thread here.
I love how thought provoking this immediately was, like my brain started rolodexing through favorite books and wondering at who their breakfast partners were. I’m in a fairly new relationship with someone who is my intellectual peer. This is the first time I’ve experienced such a match in banter, habit, wonder, and idea-exchange. Our work is undoubtedly shaped by the other now, at least subtly. When I toured Carl Sandberg’s home the guide emphasized that his wife was an accomplished poet on her own, but that she deferred her work to his, becoming an accomplished goatherd and breeder instead. So I suppose the two-geniuses (or two-creatives at least) convo quickly becomes a Venn with patriarchy, egos, misogyny, value, and household equality.
Tia, I confess I immediately screenshotted your comment and sent it to my sister, since we read your book together and texted each other nonstop throughout. It meant a LOT to both of us (we grew up in a sort of Catholic light-beer version of what you describe). Anyway, now you know how geeked I am to see you here. The new partner sounds awesome - those kind of exchanges are everything. If you haven't already read Parallel Lives, run, don't walk. It's SO good. Never been out of print in 40 years. It was a favorite of Nora Ephron's, and Sheila Heti wrote an intro to the 2020 edition, so it comes highly recommended.
Putting Sandberg on my research list! Love the poems but never read a biog.
I think in most people's mind, by this point, Mary is clearly the more important/influencial Shelley (although their dynamic between themselves is endlessly fascinating). You've prompted me to explore Howard though!
It might be an effect of effectively spending time in the archives, looking at the longer history of the field. I agree the assumptions are flipping, but it is pretty recent and still relatively partial, I think, even as we get Elle Fanning dramas on the point. Howard is amazing! If you want to, join me in reading the Cazelet Chronicles. They're on my TBR and The Long View was so impressive I've been itching to dig deeper.
For health reasons, I generally have to stick to happy, funny stories, especially these days. You've made me want to see if my local libraries have Amis and Howard. However, you described Howard as doing an amazing job of describing approaching doom. Did she also write anything funny? I'm sorry, but I really have to be very careful.
Bill, I am very familiar with that problem of needing to avoid overly sad material, or anything that could be depressing! So believe me, I sympathize. The Long View is sad but not so much so you can’t read it. It also takes what I think is a fundamentally expansive approach to its material, and that’s not depressing at all.
I'll try not to forget, though with my extreme ADD, I don't hold out much hope. I'd like to find someone to read The Long View with, so we can discuss the experience, especially anything that's hard for us.
I mean. Yes. But also, the "main character" framing is functionally stolen from feminist recovered histories, which have been in academia and popular culture since the "faddish" 1970s you reference in this piece. A lot of us do this-- Iris Jamahl Dunkle does is for a living. Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick has resurrected Assia Wevill. There is a wealth of literature that does this and a wealth of literature about how to do it. Check out "How To Suppress Women's Writing" by Joanna Russ.
Thanks, will definitely check it out. Wasn't denigrating the '70s - all that work is incredibly necessary and worthwhile, and reading an interview with Rose lately about the state of biography in the '70s helped me imagine more of what it must have felt like too. I was more referencing the way we often think about that era of feminism and scholarship as if all its concerns had been solved, when the opposite is true! Could've put that better.
Many of us do not think about the issues of feminism in the 70s in that way at all, actually. I teach women and gender studies for a living and, living in America in 2025, it’s dangerously clear that none of it has been solved and in fact we are moving in the opposite direction.
I don't think we disagree! It's painful to know how very unresolved these things are. For me it's more about wanting to speak to folks who are aware as well as those who, for whatever reason, aren't aware or see it other ways. My audience comes from pretty disparate sources so I'm not trying to assume too much about worldviews, strong as my own convictions may be, or however grounded I feel in them.
Sure, and I'm glad you want to do that. But it's also useful to credit feminist writers and historians where their credit is due. Or else we end up believing this is a brand-new idea (what else is "main character" framing but feminist recovered history?) which re-buries the work women like Adrienne Rich and Russ did, over fifty years ago. You end up perpetuating the same misogynist cycle, whether you mean to or not.
I know tone can be hard to parse on here sometimes but my reaction to this is sincere enthusiasm, not facetious: I’d love to see you—or someone of your caliber—map the connections between TikTok’s ‘main character’ framing and feminist historiography. I think there’s definitely an interesting conversation to be had there, and connections, though I’m not totally convinced they’re necessarily the same thing
Catherine, this was wonderful. My father was incredible but my mother was the supernova, anyone knew that immediately. I’m glad we live in an age where people aren’t in the endnotes or margins.
I think part of the reason Mary Shelley was overlooked, and I think continues to be, is partly due to her own fault. After Percy’s death, she dedicated her life to preserving his legacy over her own career. She made this conscious decision, and helped spin the narrative that endured.
The Shelley’s lives read like a gothic novel. Mary proves her undying love for her husband by raising him above her. It’s all very romantic and I give her a lot of credit as her husband was all about free love and she blamed him for the deaths of their children. Percy Shelley was a very gifted poet there’s no denying that, but most days of the week Frankenstein is my favorite novel. So, I’m definitely Team Mary.
Going to Edgar Allan Poe-- I always found it perplexing that Poe never mentioned her, at least to my knowledge never did. They wrote in the same genre more or less and her novel, The Last Man, and his short story, Masque of the Read Death, have many similarities.
I so enjoy getting recommendations of this sort, from someone I trust. Have now added both Amis and Howard to my list. This is a really excellent piece, Cat, and I think you should submit a (perhaps chubbier?) version to LitHub as I feel they'd be all over it, as would their readers. As for your WTF indignation - which I absolutely share - at the risk of stating the obvious, these brilliant writers being 'just women' would automatically be deemed a preposterous consideration for any real merit. (They must have felt this themselves too, which is REALLY tragic). Didn't Mary Shelley devote her entire life to keeping Percy's poetry legacy alive?
I like to recall that quote about Ginger Rogers' who was "doing everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards, in high heels."
And yet historically, who gets the most credit ...?
I think especially in the 21st century Mary has eclipsed Percy because of the invaluable works feminist scholars.
My theory about why Shelley was acknowledge first beyond being a man, is that he came from money and is the archetype of the romantic genius. Mary was behind the scenes doing things while being a mother and wife. She was always seen as the Godwin girl, influenced by the men in her life and the undue influence of her mother.
Meanwhile Shelley was setting fire to things, getting expelled from Oxford, fighting with his father and pissing off those in power. Overtly. He was a little hard to ignore.
Unfortunately it’s only when we look hard that we find genius and main characters that don’t conform to a perceived archetype of genius
I just finished listening to the audiobook edition of Frankisstein and I love how Mary is just so brilliant and so disgusted with the men who surround her - they are just a bunch of asshats, with varying sparks of creativity. She really is the star of the show, as she was in real life although the men were afraid to admit it.
Funny you should mention that, because a friend texted me about it like an hour after this post went live! I really need to read it. Thanks for the rec.
I have to agree with Richard, at least for myself. I find Shelley's poetry to be meringue and "Frankenstein" to be a big bite of reality. Too real, almost, right now.
Very interesting. Post-modern perspective, in some ways — difficulty in finding the truth, although you implies that there might be one, whereas some of the more radical deconstructionists might not think there is a truth.
Almost all of the piece is about biography, but you switch at the end from examining couples in marriage to the story of our times. That switch from a close examination of particular people to social issues is a leaf that might be worth exploring. We could, after all, have lots of the details wrong but still have the big picture right.
I don't know, I think it's very much an open question and particular to cases whether it's possible to get details wrong and the big picture right. At least in my experience so far, it's a lot easier to get the details right, or roughly right, while whiffing the big picture. An enterprise that never ends, kind of fun that way.
Not sure if you've read this, but I recommend the book How to Think Like a Woman by Regan Penaluna— I think it's just her philosophy PhD thesis as a book. It dives into the lives and stories of women philosophers throughout time, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley's mother. I wasn't super into the parts about Penaluna's divorce (she's got a bit of main character syndrome, lol). However, reading the stories of all these brilliant women stacked together really riled me up because women have been creating incredible work all this time. Also heartbreaking to find out how much of the work of women has been lost over time. It's not just that the winners write history, they also invest in the literal physical preservation of their works, their history, leading future generations to believe that the only important thinkers of the time were men.
Hi Catherine! Finally getting around to reading this as a treat. First of all, thank you for the Kingsley Amis rec! He is one of those post-war British writers I had never gotten around to (too busy obsessively re-reading Dorothy Sayers I guess). And I love Tim Kreider's writing! It doesn't surprise me that we have that overlap in taste. I am beyond excited to dive into both Amis and Howard. (BTW I have a colleague who makes something of a cottage industry of reading and recommending "forgotten"[-ish] brilliant post-war women novelists. I've been keeping a running list if you're interested.) At any rate: Mary Shelley. I teach Frankenstein pretty much every semester, and I can't resist doing some biographical background on her with my students even though I also sternly warn them not to rely too heavily on biographical details blah blah blah. She was NINETEEN when she wrote Frankenstein! (That always wakes them up.) I'm sure you're familiar with the older University of Chicago edition of the novel that for years "established" that Percy must have basically written it because how could a mere teenage girl even? The textual and editorial history of the novel alone are so fascinating. (Also I cannot resist telling them the story of 16-year-old Mary and MARRIED older Percy having sex on the grave of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft.) Okay, enough 200-year-old gossip! Off to read the Tim Kreider column, the Howard novel, and then all of Kingsley Amis. Thank you!!!
Mary is the main character in It’s a Wonderful Life! Tell me I am wrong! She fixes his terrible decisions every time and is the one solving every problem, shielding the children from his rage and petulance, and letting him take the credit. I hate that movie. I think I’ve lost the thread here.
Oh no, I think you're on to something big! Please, please write this polemic!!! I'm begging
I love how thought provoking this immediately was, like my brain started rolodexing through favorite books and wondering at who their breakfast partners were. I’m in a fairly new relationship with someone who is my intellectual peer. This is the first time I’ve experienced such a match in banter, habit, wonder, and idea-exchange. Our work is undoubtedly shaped by the other now, at least subtly. When I toured Carl Sandberg’s home the guide emphasized that his wife was an accomplished poet on her own, but that she deferred her work to his, becoming an accomplished goatherd and breeder instead. So I suppose the two-geniuses (or two-creatives at least) convo quickly becomes a Venn with patriarchy, egos, misogyny, value, and household equality.
Tia, I confess I immediately screenshotted your comment and sent it to my sister, since we read your book together and texted each other nonstop throughout. It meant a LOT to both of us (we grew up in a sort of Catholic light-beer version of what you describe). Anyway, now you know how geeked I am to see you here. The new partner sounds awesome - those kind of exchanges are everything. If you haven't already read Parallel Lives, run, don't walk. It's SO good. Never been out of print in 40 years. It was a favorite of Nora Ephron's, and Sheila Heti wrote an intro to the 2020 edition, so it comes highly recommended.
Putting Sandberg on my research list! Love the poems but never read a biog.
Aw! I love that and always enjoy your substack. I’ll order Parallel Lives today!
I think in most people's mind, by this point, Mary is clearly the more important/influencial Shelley (although their dynamic between themselves is endlessly fascinating). You've prompted me to explore Howard though!
It might be an effect of effectively spending time in the archives, looking at the longer history of the field. I agree the assumptions are flipping, but it is pretty recent and still relatively partial, I think, even as we get Elle Fanning dramas on the point. Howard is amazing! If you want to, join me in reading the Cazelet Chronicles. They're on my TBR and The Long View was so impressive I've been itching to dig deeper.
Just ordered The Long View based on your description, so that seems like a good entry point
Will be excited to hear what you think!
For health reasons, I generally have to stick to happy, funny stories, especially these days. You've made me want to see if my local libraries have Amis and Howard. However, you described Howard as doing an amazing job of describing approaching doom. Did she also write anything funny? I'm sorry, but I really have to be very careful.
Bill, I am very familiar with that problem of needing to avoid overly sad material, or anything that could be depressing! So believe me, I sympathize. The Long View is sad but not so much so you can’t read it. It also takes what I think is a fundamentally expansive approach to its material, and that’s not depressing at all.
I'll try not to forget, though with my extreme ADD, I don't hold out much hope. I'd like to find someone to read The Long View with, so we can discuss the experience, especially anything that's hard for us.
I mean. Yes. But also, the "main character" framing is functionally stolen from feminist recovered histories, which have been in academia and popular culture since the "faddish" 1970s you reference in this piece. A lot of us do this-- Iris Jamahl Dunkle does is for a living. Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick has resurrected Assia Wevill. There is a wealth of literature that does this and a wealth of literature about how to do it. Check out "How To Suppress Women's Writing" by Joanna Russ.
Thanks, will definitely check it out. Wasn't denigrating the '70s - all that work is incredibly necessary and worthwhile, and reading an interview with Rose lately about the state of biography in the '70s helped me imagine more of what it must have felt like too. I was more referencing the way we often think about that era of feminism and scholarship as if all its concerns had been solved, when the opposite is true! Could've put that better.
Many of us do not think about the issues of feminism in the 70s in that way at all, actually. I teach women and gender studies for a living and, living in America in 2025, it’s dangerously clear that none of it has been solved and in fact we are moving in the opposite direction.
I don't think we disagree! It's painful to know how very unresolved these things are. For me it's more about wanting to speak to folks who are aware as well as those who, for whatever reason, aren't aware or see it other ways. My audience comes from pretty disparate sources so I'm not trying to assume too much about worldviews, strong as my own convictions may be, or however grounded I feel in them.
Sure, and I'm glad you want to do that. But it's also useful to credit feminist writers and historians where their credit is due. Or else we end up believing this is a brand-new idea (what else is "main character" framing but feminist recovered history?) which re-buries the work women like Adrienne Rich and Russ did, over fifty years ago. You end up perpetuating the same misogynist cycle, whether you mean to or not.
I know tone can be hard to parse on here sometimes but my reaction to this is sincere enthusiasm, not facetious: I’d love to see you—or someone of your caliber—map the connections between TikTok’s ‘main character’ framing and feminist historiography. I think there’s definitely an interesting conversation to be had there, and connections, though I’m not totally convinced they’re necessarily the same thing
Catherine, this was wonderful. My father was incredible but my mother was the supernova, anyone knew that immediately. I’m glad we live in an age where people aren’t in the endnotes or margins.
Margie, I like the sound of your Mom! And I agree. I'm glad too. Thank you for the kind words.
I think part of the reason Mary Shelley was overlooked, and I think continues to be, is partly due to her own fault. After Percy’s death, she dedicated her life to preserving his legacy over her own career. She made this conscious decision, and helped spin the narrative that endured.
The Shelley’s lives read like a gothic novel. Mary proves her undying love for her husband by raising him above her. It’s all very romantic and I give her a lot of credit as her husband was all about free love and she blamed him for the deaths of their children. Percy Shelley was a very gifted poet there’s no denying that, but most days of the week Frankenstein is my favorite novel. So, I’m definitely Team Mary.
Going to Edgar Allan Poe-- I always found it perplexing that Poe never mentioned her, at least to my knowledge never did. They wrote in the same genre more or less and her novel, The Last Man, and his short story, Masque of the Read Death, have many similarities.
I so enjoy getting recommendations of this sort, from someone I trust. Have now added both Amis and Howard to my list. This is a really excellent piece, Cat, and I think you should submit a (perhaps chubbier?) version to LitHub as I feel they'd be all over it, as would their readers. As for your WTF indignation - which I absolutely share - at the risk of stating the obvious, these brilliant writers being 'just women' would automatically be deemed a preposterous consideration for any real merit. (They must have felt this themselves too, which is REALLY tragic). Didn't Mary Shelley devote her entire life to keeping Percy's poetry legacy alive?
I like to recall that quote about Ginger Rogers' who was "doing everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards, in high heels."
And yet historically, who gets the most credit ...?
I think especially in the 21st century Mary has eclipsed Percy because of the invaluable works feminist scholars.
My theory about why Shelley was acknowledge first beyond being a man, is that he came from money and is the archetype of the romantic genius. Mary was behind the scenes doing things while being a mother and wife. She was always seen as the Godwin girl, influenced by the men in her life and the undue influence of her mother.
Meanwhile Shelley was setting fire to things, getting expelled from Oxford, fighting with his father and pissing off those in power. Overtly. He was a little hard to ignore.
Unfortunately it’s only when we look hard that we find genius and main characters that don’t conform to a perceived archetype of genius
I just finished listening to the audiobook edition of Frankisstein and I love how Mary is just so brilliant and so disgusted with the men who surround her - they are just a bunch of asshats, with varying sparks of creativity. She really is the star of the show, as she was in real life although the men were afraid to admit it.
Funny you should mention that, because a friend texted me about it like an hour after this post went live! I really need to read it. Thanks for the rec.
"Just a bunch of asshats, with varying sparks of creativity" should be cross-stitched and on display somewhere. I LOVE this.
I have to agree with Richard, at least for myself. I find Shelley's poetry to be meringue and "Frankenstein" to be a big bite of reality. Too real, almost, right now.
Very interesting. Post-modern perspective, in some ways — difficulty in finding the truth, although you implies that there might be one, whereas some of the more radical deconstructionists might not think there is a truth.
Almost all of the piece is about biography, but you switch at the end from examining couples in marriage to the story of our times. That switch from a close examination of particular people to social issues is a leaf that might be worth exploring. We could, after all, have lots of the details wrong but still have the big picture right.
I don't know, I think it's very much an open question and particular to cases whether it's possible to get details wrong and the big picture right. At least in my experience so far, it's a lot easier to get the details right, or roughly right, while whiffing the big picture. An enterprise that never ends, kind of fun that way.
OK, this post and these comments are so compelling. I'm about to go re-read absolutely everything I've ever touched.
Not sure if you've read this, but I recommend the book How to Think Like a Woman by Regan Penaluna— I think it's just her philosophy PhD thesis as a book. It dives into the lives and stories of women philosophers throughout time, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley's mother. I wasn't super into the parts about Penaluna's divorce (she's got a bit of main character syndrome, lol). However, reading the stories of all these brilliant women stacked together really riled me up because women have been creating incredible work all this time. Also heartbreaking to find out how much of the work of women has been lost over time. It's not just that the winners write history, they also invest in the literal physical preservation of their works, their history, leading future generations to believe that the only important thinkers of the time were men.
Hi Catherine! Finally getting around to reading this as a treat. First of all, thank you for the Kingsley Amis rec! He is one of those post-war British writers I had never gotten around to (too busy obsessively re-reading Dorothy Sayers I guess). And I love Tim Kreider's writing! It doesn't surprise me that we have that overlap in taste. I am beyond excited to dive into both Amis and Howard. (BTW I have a colleague who makes something of a cottage industry of reading and recommending "forgotten"[-ish] brilliant post-war women novelists. I've been keeping a running list if you're interested.) At any rate: Mary Shelley. I teach Frankenstein pretty much every semester, and I can't resist doing some biographical background on her with my students even though I also sternly warn them not to rely too heavily on biographical details blah blah blah. She was NINETEEN when she wrote Frankenstein! (That always wakes them up.) I'm sure you're familiar with the older University of Chicago edition of the novel that for years "established" that Percy must have basically written it because how could a mere teenage girl even? The textual and editorial history of the novel alone are so fascinating. (Also I cannot resist telling them the story of 16-year-old Mary and MARRIED older Percy having sex on the grave of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft.) Okay, enough 200-year-old gossip! Off to read the Tim Kreider column, the Howard novel, and then all of Kingsley Amis. Thank you!!!
The Long View has… a designing principle!
This was so, so good, Cat. I am definitely going to have to order The Long View too!