Deranged, dissociated, and loving it: the rise of 'unhinged women' literature

This project explores the current (2018-present) rise in publication and popularity of ‘unhinged women’ literature. Unhinged women literature is a term that I am using to encompass the rapid emergence of contemporary fiction which typically centres on white, financially secure, and conventionally attractive women who revel in the abject, indulging in excessive drinking, drug use and risky and unhealthy sexual encounters. They often have fraught and toxic relationships with their mothers and unhealthy and disordered relationships to food. Protagonists frequently harbour distrustful and negative attitudes towards therapy, self-help and feminist discourses, and wallow in their states of misery, engaging in damaging activities with a level of self-awareness that does not lead them to stop what they are doing. They are quick to judge others and they maintain a deep cynicism towards, and acceptance of, the current state of the world. These unhinged women often exist in a dissociated state, alienated from their own lives, and their only confidants tend to be the implied reader of the text.

Neoliberal postfeminist theory is crucial in understanding how and why these novels appeal to their readerships which predominantly comprise of young women who romanticise and idealise unhinged women heroines. Case study analysis of Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts (2020), and Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby (2021), demonstrates that these novels are highly valuable cultural artefacts, and the genre’s success is deeply indicative of the current social and political climate. In a context wherein there is a return to expectations of traditional femininity and social and political action has come to be understood as impossible to achieve, unhinged women literature serves as a rare site of solidarity and connection where experiences of suffering are, if not contested, at least validated, and rendered intelligible.