The Riddles of the Sphinx
Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
"A surprising and ambitious investigation of language and the varied ways women resist the paradoxes of patriarchy both on and off the page."—New York Times
Combining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen’s Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator’s compulsively readable memoir about anorexia and language, and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women’s work and feminist protest.
The indisputable “queen of crosswords,” Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, helped to spearhead the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.
In this fascinating work of literary nonfiction—part memoir, part cultural analysis—she excavates the hidden history of the crossword and the overlooked women who have been central to its creation and evolution, from the “Crossword Craze” of the 1920s to the role of digital technology today. As she tells the story of her own experience in the CrossWorld, she analyzes the roles assigned to women in American culture, the boxes they’ve been allowed to fill, and the ways that they’ve used puzzles to negotiate the constraints and play of desire under patriarchy.
The result is an unforgettable and engrossing work of art, a loving and revealing homage to one of our most treasured, entertaining, and ultimately political pastimes.
The Riddles of the Sphinx untangles the knot of language, power, and identity to reveal:
Crossword Puzzle History: The overlooked women who shaped the American crossword, from the 1920s ‘Crossword Craze’ to the digital age, and have been central to its creation and evolution.Psychoanalysis and Language: A sharp exploration of the surprising connections between anorexia, Freudian analysis, and the relentless act of tearing language apart and piecing it back together.Feminist Protest: How women have used word games and puzzles as an unexpected site of resistance against the constraints and paradoxes of patriarchy.Memoir and Cultural History: A deeply personal journey into the CrossWorld, where the author’s own story becomes a lens to analyze the roles assigned to women in American culture.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shechtman, a crossword compiler for the New York Times and the New Yorker, debuts with a rigorous yet fleet-footed exploration of the crossword puzzle's feminist legacy. Profiling four women pivotal to the crossword's evolution—Ruth Hale, Margaret Farrar, Julia Penelope, and Ruth von Phul—Shechtman tracks the crossword from its 1913 invention, through its rising popularity in the 1920s and '30s, to its eventual widespread adoption by newspapers and magazines. Noting that women were long the primary creators of crosswords, Shechtman explains how the rise of computer technology that transformed the way crossword constructors work has led to the field being taken over in recent decades by men. Pairing this history with a ruminative memoir that chronicles both her love for crossword construction and her youthful struggles with anorexia, Shechtman draws effortlessly on feminist theory and psychoanalysis to ultimately make the astute observation that both her eating disorder and her crossword-constructing habit stem from a need for control—of the body and language. Throughout, Shechtman investigates how gender, race, and politics affect crosswords, though her self-analyzing narrative often pushes back against this line of inquiry ("The question risks a double embarrassment: trivializing the serious stuff of politics or, maybe worse, taking trivialities too seriously"). By turns incisive and roving, this teases out hidden connections and forgotten histories that will enthrall readers.
