Kristy Cambron The Making of a Mad Woman Thomas Nelson Fiction, February 2027.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
Kristy Cambron introduces Jo Carmichael as she enters the board room to take over her late father’s position as CEO of an advertising firm, struggling to exist in the male dominated, sexist world of advertising. One of her brothers supports her; the other is about to be ousted from the firm. In a familiar sexist encounter, Jo is thwarted by his secretary, leading to her instant dismissal when Jo takes over. To counter the negative impression she makes, Jo announces the likelihood of winning the prestigious and lucrative Pan Am account.
In a modern timeline, Jo Carmichael is a grandmother, failing in health but flourishing in mental strength and a sense of humour, with a predilection for matchmaking thrown in. The object of this matchmaking, Jo’s granddaughter cares for Jo on a nostalgic trip to New York. has survived personal and physical hardship and is determined to protect herself from romance. As the story progresses, the timeline in which Jo faces the possibility of a romance that can endure and impact her career is also developed.
Cambron makes an excellent contribution to feminist writing in her portrayal of a strong, ambitious, and capable woman in a challenging profession. She also deftly introduces social commentary reflecting the mores of the 1960s and combats the sexist and racist behaviour and perspectives that impact the advertising world in which Jo Carmichael moves. In addition, she develops the notion that women can be a successful CEO, leave that profession and adopt another on a smaller stage, have a romantic life, and flourish in and outside the boardroom. Importantly, in depicting Jo’s treatment of other women she gives a stout fictional voice to the late Gloria Steinhem’s vision as reflected upon by Oprah Winfrey: ‘…She understood that real change happens when one woman finds her voice and then uses it to help another woman find hers.’
I admire the way in which Kristy Cambron achieved the combination of fiction and fact in The Making of a Mad Woman, A Novel. However, I also feel that she fell short of weaving a compelling narrative around the sections which are outside the advertising world and her life as a CEO. Perhaps this is my prejudice. However, I would have liked more of the former and less of the romantic and alternative professional experiences of Jo and Alex’s lives.
Another novel about women in advertising, now out of print is Women’s Work by Anne Tolstoi Wallach. I had thought about this novel published in 1988 by Hodder and Stoughton, well before reading Kristy Cambron’s work. However, could not help but compare it with The Making of a Mad Woman when I received it for review. Women’s Work concentrated on the main character’s role in the advertising industry, although it also included romance. The narrative was fast paced and catered to the popular market, while reflecting on racism and sexism in the industry and wider society., similarly to Cambron’s work.
Visions of Venice
Live online course with Miles Leeson
Just a few places left in Miles Leeson’s new course on Venice in Literature, from the 18thC grand tour to post-war gothic. Sundays, fortnightly, 20 September to 15 November 2026, 6.00-8.00 pm British Time We will study:• Byron, Child Harold IV (lines 1-250); Dickens, ‘An Italian Dream’; Wordsworth, ‘On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic’. Reference will also be made to John Ruskin’s Stones of Venice (1851)
• Henry James, The Aspern Papers (1888)
• Thomas Mann, Death in Venice (1912)
• Patricia Highsmith, Those Who Walk Away (1967)
• Daphne du Maurier, Don’t Look Now (1971)
Further information is on our website. 
Lectures for Peace
Join us for a lecture by Dr Mariah Whelan on Poetry of the Irish Peace Process. Mariah will explore how the poets of Ireland contributed to the remarkable peace process which, after decades of hard work, brought peace to Ireland through the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Sunday 11 October 2026, 2.00-4.00 pm British Summer Time, live online.All income from these lectures goes to three charities who are working for peace, equality, and to support refugees: Oxfam Gaza Campaign Standing Together (Palestinian and Jewish peace campaign)
Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group (supporting refugees in the UK)Since 2024 we have raised more than £3,500, shared between these three important charities. They need us more than ever. Thank you for your support.
Please pay the charities directly. Details are on our website.
The photo is of the great Irish poet Michael Longley.
Anton Chekhov: Plays and Stories
Join us for an introductory course, live online, on the stories and plays of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), with Claire Davison and Trudi Tate.Chekhov was one of the greatest writers in late 19thC Russia. His short stories and plays were also hugely important to English-language writers, including James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf, and many others. Live online, Thursdays, weekly, 7-28 January 2027, 6.00-8.00 pm British Time.
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The Brontës Season
Thanks to Kate Eliot for a marvellous lecture on the Brontës’ Juvenilila; a great start to our Brontës Season. Coming up:
• 3 October 2026. Trudi Tate, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847) (nearly sold out)
• 7 November 2026. Greta Colombani, The Poetry of Emily Brontë
• 9 January 2027. Clare Walker Gore, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)
• 13 February 2027. Corinna Russell, Charlotte Brontë, Villette (1853)
• 13 March 2027. Alison Hennegan, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848).
Further information is on our website.
Close Reading the Poetry of Emily Dickinson with Dr Mariah Whelan
Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts and died in 1886. She is regarded as one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century, though very little of her work was published in her lifetime. Dickinson’s formal experimentation and her inventive use of the first person are just two of the ideas that we will discuss as we observe, analyse and talk about how the poems use language, sound, form and imagery to marvellous effect. Two sessions, 8 November and 15 November 2026, 2.00-4.00 pm British Time (GMT)
Further information is on our website.Photo by Cathy Holewinski, Unsplash. 
Homer and Shakespeare
Lecturers Dr Fred Parker and Dr Jan Parker return in 2027 with a new course on Homer and Shakespeare: Stories of the Heroic World and its Survival.
Lecture list• 23 February 2027. Jan Parker on Homer, the Iliad
• 2 March 2027. Jan Parker on Homer, the Odyssey
• 9 March 2027. Fred Parker on Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
• 16 March 2027. Fred Parker on Shakespeare, Othello; Troilus and Cressida Further information is on our website.
The information above is from the regular email sent to me by at Literature Cambridge; Dr Trudi Tate, Director, Literature Cambridge Ltd, Find us on Substack.
The US Supreme Court has rejected President Trump’s attempt to use the mail service to manipulate the Mid-term elections. However, Heather Cox Richard’s email below makes chilling reading.
American Politics
Heather Cox Richardson September 12, 2026
Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more
On Thursday, in The New Republic, conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published a dire warning to the Republican Party…and to all Americans. In the piece, Luttig outlined how Republicans could refuse to seat elected Democrats in January after a Democratic victory in the 2026 midterm elections of November. “The coming crisis,” the piece says, would be “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”
Luttig spelled out that Trump is fighting a war against America’s democracy. While the refusal of Vice President Mike Pence to assist his power grab made it fail in January 2021, Luttig notes, today Trump and his Republican congressional allies are more determined than ever to take over the country.
Luttig focuses on the ability of House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to prevent the recognition of duly-elected Democratic representatives on January 3. Johnson has the power, Luttig says, to remove the current House clerk, Kevin McCumber, and replace him temporarily with a MAGA loyalist who will refuse to list Democrats on the roll of those elected to the 120th Congress.In this scenario, once Democrats are eliminated, they will have to get a federal court to order the temporary clerk to list their names. If a court does so, another crisis point will arrive if the clerk simply refuses to obey the order. Then it’s possible the courts will stay out of the fight until the 120th Congress formally convenes and the Republicans vote not to seat the Democrats. That vote would be reviewable by the courts, including the Supreme Court.But that review would take weeks, if not months, paralyzing the United States and leaving the country “helplessly vulnerable to all the world’s evil, as it would have been in January 2021 had Mike Pence not thwarted Donald Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” And at that point, how would the current Supreme Court answer the question: “Is the United States of America a democracy, in which ‘We the People’ elect our representatives to the Congress and to the presidency, or is it not?”
As if to illustrate Luttig’s warning, House speaker Johnson told attendees at Trump’s convention in Dallas on Thursday: “We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in the Congress. We’re not gonna do it.”
Trump’s attempt to use the United States Postal Service to screen mail-in voting has recently had a test run. Yesterday, Jim Saksa of Democracy Docket picked up a story from Jeff Berlew of the Tallahassee Democrat to report that the USPS rejected mailed ballots from Leon County, in Florida, because the words “return service requested” were only 0.236 inches from the election office’s return address. They were supposed to be a full quarter-inch apart. So, the delivery of those mail in ballots came down to a federal complaint about a spacing issue of 0.014 of an inch.“It’s ridiculous,” Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley told Berlew. But, as Saksa notes, the rejection of ballots for such a petty flaw shows what will likely happen if the Supreme Court lifts the injunction blocking the postal service from implementing the new rules it has put in place since Trump ordered such interference in a March executive order.On Thursday, September 10, Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) under Trump has sent threatening letters to at least thirty top election officials in the states, warning that those officials “are currently under investigation” and are subject to “ongoing litigation,” and so must not destroy any records relating to the 2024 election. As Corasaniti notes, the administration has sued 30 states for their voter lists and has lost 23 of the cases and won none. Trump has claimed to be the victim of voter fraud since the 2016 primaries but has never produced any proof of his claims.In July, Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the civil rights division in the DOJ, threatened state election officials with criminal prosecution if any noncitizens cast a ballot in their state (although it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote), and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin threatened election officials with criminal prosecution if they did not put Trump’s election changes into effect.
Election officials already follow the laws about retaining documents, so the letters seem to be about threatening them. Nevada secretary of state Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, told Corasaniti: “It’s the constant ‘flood the zone’ of harassment and intimidation and threats of legal action hoping we’d fold at some point.” But, he added, “We’re going to continue to follow the law and do what’s in the best interest of our voters.”
And what of the MAGA Republicans Trump would like to see in Congress?Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post reported yesterday that 25-year-old Stephen Woytek, a top campaign staffer for Senator Jon Husted (R-OH), has recently cultivated a public playlist of songs celebrating the former country of Rhodesia, in which a white minority ruled over a Black majority, captioning it “homesick for a place that no longer exists.” Rhodesia is a rallying cry for white supremacists who deplore the change that created Zimbabwe. Woytek also appears to be a historical reenactor who appears to have both worn Nazi uniforms and used a photo of Nazi soldiers as his Facebook profile picture.Ohio governor Mike DeWine appointed Husted to the Senate to replace J.D. Vance after Vance was elected to the vice presidency, and Husted is now locked in a battle for that seat with former senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat known for his defense of labor. A statement for Husted said that while Woytek “denies negative intent,” the campaign was parting ways with him.
As Goodwin notes, growing numbers of younger Republicans have been expressing support for white nationalism and the Nazis.Indeed, in his warning, Luttig did not single out Democrats to protect democracy; as he noted in a piece on his Substack in August, plenty of people are already fighting. He called out Republicans.
“There was a time not long ago when virtually every member of Congress could be expected to commit to the peaceful transfer of congressional power in advance of an election,” Luttig wrote. But now, “[i]n a damning indictment of the president and today’s congressional Republicans, it would be hard to find even one congressional Republican with the integrity, sense of duty to country, honor, and courage to put America above the Republican Party, let alone above Donald Trump.”He urged Republicans “to decide that they are not going to betray their oaths and their country one last time for Donald Trump,” and to make it clear to Trump and Johnson that they will not participate in any unconstitutional plan to deny Democrats seats in the new Congress.
He warned them that should Republicans go along with such machinations and the Supreme Court overrule them, the Republican Party “would finally meet the fate to which it has been destined since January 6, 2021, and cement its place in history as the most corrupt political party ever to emerge in the United States of America for its second attempt in six years to defy the will of the American people on Election Day.”
“The writing is already on the wall, Republicans,” the conservative jurist wrote. “The Republican Party in particular must finally loose the chains of its political and moral enslavement to Donald Trump and separate itself from the MAGA political party cult.”Today, in Ireland, where he traveled for the Irish Open at his golf club in Doonbeg, Trump told reporters: “We had a rigged election. As you know, it was totally rigged. Because I won three times. I didn’t win twice. I won three times.”—
Notes:https://newrepublic.com/article/215198/2027-new-congress-final-battle-american-democracyhttps://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/in-ominous-sign-usps-initially-rejected-florida-countys-mail-ballot-over-spacing-issue/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/us/politics/department-of-justice-election-fraud-states.html?eafs_enabled=falsehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/09/11/ohio-senate-campaign-staffer-used-nazi-soldiers-profile-photo/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/26/gop-feuntes-trump-antisemitism-nationalism/
Judge J. Michael Luttig The Final Battle for America’s Democracy
Over the past three weeks, in the lead-up to Labor Day and afterward the two-month run-up to the mid-term elections, my friends David French, Tim Snyder, Joyce Vance, Heather Cox Richardson, and others, have all issued powerful and eloquent warnings about the evident intentions of Donald Trump and the United States Government to interfere in what otherw…Read more a month ago · Judge J. Michael Luttig’Bluesky: atrupar.com/post/3mv7434npcn2fatrupar.com/post/3mvdbjeomc62h
By Melissa Clark September 13, 2026
A book I can’t stop thinking about
At the suggestion of several readers I picked up Elizabeth Strout’s “The Things We Never Say,” and I’ve been thinking about the book ever since. Food is used strategically throughout the novel, most often to illustrate the family strife of the middle-aged protagonist, Artie Dam.
Dull-sounding meals are microwaved and eaten with a heavy heart: chicken, broccoli, mashed potatoes, a sign of domestic life gone awry. In one particularly telling moment, Artie doesn’t even bother heating up his dinner; he makes do with a plate of cold fish. And then there’s Artie’s recurring memories of his sister Maria, furtively eating confectioners’ sugar straight from the package in the cellar. In their unstable childhood home, she was just looking for a little sweetness, Artie thinks.
Like Melissa Clark, I find Elizabeth Strout’s novels compelling reading which make an impression that lasts. I have reviewed two for this blog.
Elizabeth Strout Oh William! Viking (Penguin Random House)2021, reviewed in my blog January 26, 2022, beginning:
My first, but certainly not last, novel from this talented writer. I am glad to see that Lucy Barton’s story has been partially written, as here in Oh William! she appears as William’s former wife (he was her first husband) and I would like to know more of the woman who took his last name but relinquished it gladly after eleven years. Who is this woman who became William’s wife, took his name despite her friend’s interrogation, said she did not care about being a feminist, wanting so much to be free of herself, and yet, after William’s mother dies becomes Lucy Barton again? Lucy Barton for the remaining nine years of their marriage? Effected the change almost by chance when she had her driver’s license renewed? Then, took it so seriously she bothered with court documents to do so? Left William, after twenty years of marriage but grieved over their separation? Is concerned about the pain for herself and their two daughters, but remains resolutely apart?…
Elizabeth Strout Tell Me Everything Penguin General UK – Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Penguin Life, Penguin Business | Viking reviewed in my blog September 25 2024.
*I am surrounded by boxes, opened and unopened and clouds of packing paper as I moved a few days ago. A short blog is only one of my activities that is suffering, but one I regret. More next week as the boxes and clouds diminish.
Robin's Room 