Book Review: The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit

Reviewed by L. Ann Wheeler

The Mother of All Questions
Essays by Rebecca Solnit
Haymarket Books, March 2017
$14.95; 192 pp.
ISBN-13: 978-1608467402

If you read one book about feminism this summer, let it be The Mother of All Questions. Doubtless you may have heard of Rebecca Solnit as the originator of the perennially useable portmanteau mansplainer, or as a writer at the forefront of ecofeminism. This slim volume bears immediate reading and re-reading—as the world changes around it and us, it’s endlessly relevant.

Split into two sections (Silence is Broken and Breaking the Story), The Mother of All Questions is a centering of Solnit’s unapologetically observant and truth-speaking voice on toxic, violent masculinity, and the culture of ours that’s so steeped in rape. As she explains, “I was given advice about how to modify or limit my own life—rather than an affirmation that this was wrong and should change.” Solnit sheds light on those dark spaces in understanding and social interactions (like victim blaming) that so often go unquestioned, with an eye towards both environmental and feminist concerns. “I care passionately about the inhabitability of our planet from an environmental perspective,” Solnit writes, “but until it’s fully inhabitable by women who can walk down the street without the constant fear of trouble and danger we will labor under practical and psychological burdens that impair our full powers.”

Circling contemporary issues and examples like Cosby, the rise of the “Greek chorus” of internet activists, modern iterations of the rape joke, and the importance of men to the cause of feminism (“Maybe what these feminist guys are saying is: men are finally going to be held accountable and that frightens them. Maybe it’s good for them to be frightened—or at least accountable.”), Solnit captures in her exceedingly intelligent and readable way this moment in time. She astutely captures insights into the way our world—for better and for worse—works.

L. Ann Wheeler is a writer and artist in Lawrence, Kansas. Her first book, Abandoners, is forthcoming from The Operating System in 2018, and other work has appeared in Omniverse, Forklift, Ohio, and ILK. She studied at the Pratt Institute, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and currently at the University of Kansas.