Books
Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, Fear… and Why (Melville House, 2016)
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She’s everywhere once you start looking for her: the trainwreck.
She’s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying, “crack is whack,” and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself. Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to “behave.”
“Fantastic...Trainwreck will very likely join the feminist canon.”—The Atlantic
“Fiercely brilliant, must-read...Doyle has dug deeply into the garbage that the media peddles about women...Doyle's book moves the needle.”—Elle
“A ruthlessly funny, smart, and relentlessly on-point takedown of modern misogyny….Doyle’s debut book places her on the A-list of contemporary feminist writers.”—Publishers Weekly starred review
Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power (Melville House, 2019)
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A Kirkus Best Non-Fiction Book of 2019
Women have always been monsters.
Female monstrosity is threaded throughout every myth you’ve heard, and some you haven’t: carnivorous mermaids, Furies tearing men apart with razor-sharp claws, leanan sídhe enchanting mortal men and draining the souls from their bodies. Women have always been monsters, too, in the minds of great men; in philosophy, medicine, and psychology, the inherent freakishness of women has always been a baseline assumption, from Aristotle proclaiming women “mutilated males” to Freud calling them “castrated.” (Of course, when women do have penises, we’re not any nicer about that.)
But a monster is not something to dismiss or look down on. A monster does not merely inspire anger or disgust. A monster, by definition, inspires fear. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers explores men’s fear of female Otherness, and their unwitting acknowledgment of female power—a power great enough, in their own estimation, to end the world.
MAW (Boom! Studios, 2021)
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When patriarchy makes monsters, sometimes the monsters bite back in the bold debut graphic novel by Jude Ellison S. Doyle with artist A.L. Kaplan!
Dragged by her sister Wendy to a feminist retreat on a remote island of Angitia, Marion Angela Weber is seeking perspective and empowerment, but a disastrous first night leaves her frightfully changed. In the aftermath of an assault, Marion begins to transform as an unspeakable hunger crawls through her body. When the townsfolk recognize there's something different about Marion, they react with suspicion, then violence, while ignoring the monsters already among them. Critically acclaimed journalist/opinion writer Jude Ellison S. Doyle (Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers) with artist A.L. Kaplan (Full Spectrum Therapy, Heart of Gold), and colorist Fabiana Mascolo (Firefly: Brand New ‘Verse) unleash Maw, a status-quo-shattering tale examining the consequences of sexist violence and the subjugation of marginalized genders, and what happens when the wounded are backed into a corner. Collects the complete Maw #1-5.
