89. Tess Slesinger — The Unpossessed with Paula Rabinowitz and Peter Davis
Tess Slesinger at her typewriter, Hollywood, 1935
Source: UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
Joining us to discuss Tess Slesinger and her brilliant 1934 novel, The Unpossessed, is her son, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker and novelist Peter Davis, and cultural critic and professor Paula Rabinowitz. Extremely popular for a brief period, Slesinger’s satirical novel about Depression-era, left-wing New Yorkers was printed four times within a month of publication making her a minor celebrity almost overnight.
Discussed in this episode:
The Unpossessed by Tess Slesinger (New York Review Books)
Lost Ladies of Lit Episode on Margery Latimer’s We Are Incredible with Joy Castro
Time: The Present by Tess Slessinger (Boiler House Press)
“The Wasteland” by T.S. Eliot .
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945 film)
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940 film)