[It] remains true that until the last twenty years, there are few women writers known for having defiantly translated their inner chaos into visionary, surrealistic, hallucinatory works expressive of their own perceptions…. [But at the same time, there are] those women writers who defied the norms and overcame the pressure to "please" in lifestyle and in writing, those who are exceptions to de Beauvoir's contention that women lacked the courage to displease. Violette Leduc represents an outstanding example in this feminist tradition. Not only is Leduc unafraid "to disarrange, to investigate, to explode," her entire work rests on a defiant affirmation of precisely these subversions. Her insistence on screaming out her ugliness, her self-hate, her solitude, and her obsession with death underlies each of her books…. Leduc was one of the first women writers in France whose work was published because its originality lay in an honest, powerful...