BOOK NEWS: Probing gender and sexuality in spy fiction

Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionage: Spying Undercover(s)

EDITED BY ANN REA 

Bloomsbury, 2023

ISBN: 9781350271364

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sexuality-and-gender-in-fictions-of-espionage-9781350271364/

An exploration of how espionage narratives give access to cultural conceptions of gender and sexuality before and following the Second World War, this book moves away from masculinist assumptions of the genre to offer an integrative survey of the sexualities on display from important characters across spy fiction. Topics covered include how authors mocked the traditional spy genre; James Bond as a symbol of pervasive British Superiority still anxious about masculinity; how older female spies act as queer figures that disturb the masculine mythology of the secret agent; and how the clandestine lives of agents described ways to encode queer communities under threat from fascism. 

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Covering texts such as the Bond novels, John Le Carré's oeuvre (and their notable adaptations) and works by Helen MacInnes, Christopher Isherwood and Mick Herron, Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionage takes stock of spy fiction written by women, female protagonists written by men, and probes the representations of masculinity generated by male authors. Offering a counterpoint to a genre traditionally viewed as male-centric, Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionage proposes a revision of masculinity, femininity, queer identities and gendered concepts such as domesticity, and relates them to notions of nationality and the defense work conducted at crucial moments in history.

Contents:

1. "Camp Camouflage: The Art of Espionage in Mr. Norris Changes Trains" (Megan Faragher, Wright State University, Ohio)
2. "Vanished Ladies: Using Helen MacInnes's Above Suspicion to Look at Women in Spy Fiction" (Kyle Smith, Perth College UHI, Scotland)
3. "While Still We Live: Gender, Secret Agents, and National Ethics" (Michael T. Williamson, Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
4. "'Some Other Man Who Would Have to be Set Aside:' Burgess, Maclean, and the Adversarial Spy in Ian Fleming's From Russia With Love" (Oliver Buckton, Florida Atlantic University)
5. "Bond, Colonialism and the 'Other'" (Christine Berberich, University of Portsmouth)
6. "'Learn, Babies, Learn': Race, Representation, and John Birch Society Activists Julia Brown and Lola Belle Holmes" (Veronica Wilson, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown)
7. "'A New Domesticity' and Masculinity in John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Len Deighton's The Ipcress File" (Ann Rea, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown)
8. "A Queer Thing: The Older Woman Spy" (Rosie White, Northumbria University)
9. "'What's the character?' Adapting Agency and Gender in The Little Drummer Girl" (Rachel Hoag, West Virginia University)
10. "'Extolling the Virtues of Alpaca Cloth or Buttons Made of Tagua Nut': The Influence of Douglas Hayward and Tailoring in John le Carré's The Tailor of Panama (Llewella Chapman, University of East Anglia)
11. "'Darling Men, Lover Boys and Rogues:' Connie Sachs, Molly Doran and the Precarity of of Institutional Memory in John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Mick Herron's Dead Lions" (Paul Lohneis, University of West London)
12. Coda: Ann Rea, Stella Rimington, "The 'Open Secret' and the 'Mission to Inform'”

Ann Rea is professor of English literature at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. She is co-editor of the Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace series with Nick Hubbleand she also edited the essay collection, Middlebrow Wodehouse in 2015.