The Two of Them

A 1978 novel by Joanna Russ. Shortlisted for the Retrospective Tiptree Award.

Plot (spoilers)

The Two of Them features another strong female protagonist, Irene, who rescues an adolescent girl from a male-dominated quasi-Islamic society. Like many of Russ's short stories ("The Little Dirty Girl"; "Bluestocking"; "The Autobiography of My Mother" in The Adventures of Alyx) The Two of Them concentrates on a mother-daughter-type relationship.

Influences, Impacts, Intertextualism, Connections

• Joanna Russ dedicated The Two of Them to Suzette Haden Elgin, who allowed her to use characters and setting of her short story, "For the Sake of Grace", "as a springboard to a very different story of [Russ's] own".
• The Clewiston Test is the title of a novel by Kate Wilhelm, and the name of a test that the protagonist of The Two of Them, Irene, asks for (on p.142 of The Women's Press edition). Russ's use of this allusion highlights the way that her novel echoes and answers situations and themes from Wilhelm's novel.

Editions

• 1978, Berkeley-Putnam
• Berkeley, 1979