Typical Girls

English pop-culture commentator Corrigans anthology compiles the work of women writers, artists and musicians hailing from both sides of the Atlantic, who have their fingers on the pulse of late-90s feminist consciousness. Quirky, confident and convincing, these varied entries reflect the younger generation of feminisms riot-grrl brand of triumphant irreverence and sardonic transgressiveness, still insistent on self-determined destinies. Tales set in the U.K. often catch the reader off guard with sudden changes in culturally specific vernacular, and contrast with those by American novelists, who include Jennifer Belle (Going Down), Poppy Z. Brite (Courtney Love: The Real Story) and Guinevere Turner (Go Fish). While the subjects range from conventional tales of overweight school girls (The Incredible Hulk) and a scorned lover (Book of Nick) to the psychedelic (Tuberama), there is a strong common thread of self-aware bravado in selections from both countries. The most arresting piece, Saved, coauthored by Brite and Christa Faust, is a grisly fictional account of brutality that mirrors the daily news, without the comforting distance: Two bodies came into the city morgue... Both were unidentified, the faces gone to pulp and bone meal. Another story juxtaposes sex scenes between a man and his faithful girlfriend, with her repeated trips to the VD clinic. After encountering the range of humiliation, horror, humor and tenderness represented here, readers may well ask the same question as the mortified main character in Turners hilarious Cookie and Me, who is exposed on television in the act of seducing a cab driver: I dont know what I was supposed to learn from this experience, except maybe that anything can happen and nothing is sacred.... (June)