Hannah Zeavin Talks to the Author of “The Riddles of the Sphinx”
Hannah Zeavin (BCNM) is a scholar, writer, and editor whose work centers on the history of human sciences (psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry). She interviews Anna Shechtman, author of The Riddles of the Sphinx, a memoir of recovery from anorexia and a group biography of the women who developed crossword puzzles.
From the interview:
The book demands that we ask, what can we hold in common, and how can we reject an inheritance that isn’t particularly pleasant? This is a book that doesn’t shy from these essential questions to the feminist project in the 2020s. Shechtman and I met on a Wednesday afternoon to speak about the, in her words, high-class language game we share—psychoanalysis—and the one we don’t—crosswords.
The book is inheriting a feminist tradition, a tradition that is actually multiple, so I’m wondering if, before we get into all that, you can tell me a little bit about how you began to construct the book?