How to Be a Heroine, or What I’ve Learned from Reading Too Much

While growing up in London’s Iraqi-Jewish community, Ellis knew early on that she didn’t want the happy ending her parents wanted for her: “marriage to a nice Iraqi-Jewish boy.” In this charming memoir, playwright and journalist Ellis revisits and reevaluates the books that, in childhood and young adulthood, she read to figure out what kind of woman she wanted to be. Her journey begins during an argument with her best friend about which of the Brontë sisters’ heroines is best, when she realizes that, rather than Wuthering Heights’ tumultuous Cathy Earnshaw, she should have been defending rational, clear-sighted Jane Eyre. She goes on to revisit her early admiration for Anne of Green Gables, Lizzy Bennett, and Franny Glass, while also admitting that some of her heroines fall short today, whether because they are too insipid (The Little Princess) or preachy (Little Women). She’s unsparing even toward her all-time favorite novel, Wuthering Heights, finding Cathy and Heathcliff’s love “the kind... that could only be written by someone who had never been in love.” Likable and open about her own vulnerabilities as well as her characters’, Ellis concludes that “maybe it’s by appropriating our heroines that we become heroines ourselves.” [em]Agent: Judith Murray, Greene & Heaton (U.K.). (Feb.) [/em]