Book Review: Hotbed

Scutts, Joanna. Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club that Sparked Modern Feminism. Seal Press, NY: 2022.

I just finished reading this and have tears in my eyes. What a wonderful book! I intend to read biographies on some of the women featured in this history.

Phenomenal. Inspiring.

For Women’s History Month, I read for a book discussion group a book that isn’t my kind of history book — Women of the Cousin’s War by Philippa Gregory. Reading it, I felt acutely aware that I don’t like fifteenth century England and would’ve been burned at the stake. In contrast, I relate to 1910s Greenwich Village, one of the times & places I’d want to visit as a time traveler.

This book reminded me of when I was a volunteer at In Other Words, a feminist bookstore and community center in Portland, Oregon. It unfortunately closed in 2018, but I’m still in touch with friends I met there and have a large number of books from IOW.

This book is about members of a feminist group called Heterodoxy, who met at a Cafe in Greenwich Village from 1912 to the 1940s. The focus of the history book is mostly on the 1910s and the radical movements in which these women participated. I look forward to reading biographies on some of the women mentioned (and have read biographies on others).

My novel Skeleton from the Closet is available at Amazon.com:

Skeleton from the Closet