# The Women

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/hilton-als/the-women/9780141999746

![The Women](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/hilton-als/the-women_978-01-4199-974-6.jpg?v=2026-04-24%2008%3A34%3A14)

- Book: [The Women](https://www.bookquiver.com/hilton-als/the-women) ([The Women.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/hilton-als/the-women.md))
- Authors: [Hilton Als](https://www.bookquiver.com/hilton-als)
- Publisher: Penguin
- ISBN: 978-01-4199-974-6
- Pages: 144
- Published: 2026-02-26
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

What are the forces that shape us? In The Women , Hilton Als explores—with breath taking originality—the role of sexual and racial identity in marginalized lives. With a blend of fact and fiction, Als brings to vivid life a number of extraordinary characters, including: his mother, a singular woman whose West Indian heritage and determination inspired her son to write; Malcolm X's mother, whose mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's burgeoning misogyny and fear; brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean, who deeply empathized with white gay men; and Owen Dodson, teacher and poet, who played an important role in the author's development as a gay man, and thinker. Combining memoir, cultural history, social theory and storytelling, The Women is a profoundly innovative work which has inspired a generation of writers. Here, Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to scrutiny, showing ‘no mercy but every tenderness’. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books: a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form of all its own.