A customer came into the shop recently with a problem: it had been pointed out to her that she had only read white male authors. Typically American, typically 'classics'. Kerouac, Capote, Franzen, Fitzgerald— those types. She thought that maybe this was a bad thing, and asked "Do you know any good female writers?"
Why, yes. Yes we do. There are plenty— and if you, too, favour dark and challenging books, I think you'll find that the minds of women writers can just as strange and twisty as their male counterparts.
Here are my top 9 dark and gritty works by women authors— in no particular order:
