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Laura J. Beard. Acts of Narrative Resistance: Women's Autobiographical Writings in the Americas. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2009. 199 pp. ISBN 978-0813928630, $21.50.
Western feminist theory has long taught us the personal is political and that autobiographical narration of the self can empower women and question dominant, male-centered ideologies of identity. The collective import of a personal life story exists through this empowerment, and fi ctive elements can highlight an autobiography's usefulness as political tool by making it both intimate and more than a personal story. In Acts of Narrative Resistance, Laura J. Beard examines fi ctionalized autobiographical genres "created at the nexus of political discourse and artistic practice" (1). Storytelling comes to be of particular signifi cance at this political and artistic nexus as Beard's study progresses from Latin American texts focusing on the construction of self, to Latin American family sagas that construct the nation, to Native American testimonios from Canada. In the fi nal chapter, Beard quotes a Native American critic to point out that Indigenous traditions use storytelling, rather than exposition, to explain ideas. Thus, the author links texts that fi ctionalize autobiography to a non-hegemonic perspective. She analyzes these texts as generic and discursive acts of resistance that complicate easy classifi cation within the conventions of "traditional, male-authored, Euro-American autobiography" (2).
Beard studies a heterogenous body of texts, explaining that she wishes to open discussion to less heard voices, and recognizing that not all women's auto biographical texts have been equally privileged. As she herself says, the combination is ambitious, but although the conclusion could be developed more to draw out the points of contact, the introduction to each part of the book describes commonalities, and the three parts work both separately and as a whole. She does not try to erase the various texts' differences nor the diversity of experiences they describe, nor impose one all-encompassing generalization or critical approach. Feminist theories of autobiography, theory on Latin American testimonio, poststructuralist theory, and theory on Native American writing inform her analysis, but Beard bases her theoretical approach to each text on its own metatextual characteristics. The last section on two Native American women writers of Canada might appear an odd addition to two sections on non-Indigenous Latin American authors,...