Husbands, Lovers and Dreamlovers: Masculinity and Female Desire in Women’s Novels of the 1970s

What do novels like Lisa Alther’s Kinflicks, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, Gail Godwin’s Glass People, Gael Greene’s Blue Skies, No Candy, and Anne Roiphe’s Up the Sandbox! have in common? This study argues that besides being informed by women’s liberation issues, they offer critical representations of masculine identity. The novels present protagonists who in marriage, love affairs, and erotic fantasies encounter a variety of men/masculinities. Husbands, Lovers, and Dreamlovers investigates the types of masculinities that are mobilized as “objects of desire” in these and other women’s novels of the 1970s.