Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Literary Genius That Is Taylor Jenkins Reid
By Andrea Cepeda
Enthralled with the arts from a young age, Author Taylor Jenkins Reid is the New York Times Best Selling author of Daisy Jones and the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, both historical fiction novels that follow female main characters and their Hollywood journeys to fame and all that comes with it.
Told from a past and present perspective, Reid’s first widely acclaimed book, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, follows Evelyn Hugo in her pursuit of fame, weighing the slut shaming, sexualization, and abuse she faces during her time as a Hollywood actress in the 1950’s. Gaining attention for one, her marriages, and two, her film roles, Hugo goes through scrutiny in the media, labeled as a sex symbol by some and a slut by others. Spanning her lifetime, she tells the story of every man she has married and divorced throughout her career, regaling that even having had 7 husbands, she had never truly gotten to be with the person she loved the most.
Another well-esteemed book of Reid’s, Daisy Jones and the Six, follows the journey of Daisy Jones, a folksy band singer, and her rise to fame. Similar to Hugo’s story, Daisy Jones and the Six highlights the sexism, patriarchal disparity, and misogyny present in Hollywood for women in the public eyes—as well as just in the real world. Billy Dunne, the lead singer, gets to tour the country, sleep with different women, and fall in love with Jones, all while his wife raises their daughter alone, rarely ever getting to see him. Through Dunne’s wife who acts as a single mother and the inequality that faces Jones on stage, women’s roles are subtly commented on through this 1970s-early 90s frame.
In both of Reid’s novels, she comments on modern-day views and past expectations of women. Alongside figures like Taylor Swift, who constantly gets slut shamed for the men she dated and bashed for writing break-up songs, and Marilyn Monroe, who was labeled as the sex symbol of her time but treated horribly by the media and men around her, Reid contextualizes the reality of life for a woman, both then and now. Society has established its own narrative of what the ideal woman should and shouldn’t be, yet when she is what they want, it’s still not enough, and when she’s not what they want, she gets treated like dirt.
At the end of the day, through Reid’s exceptional scrutiny and worldbuilding, she implies in her novels that the best relationship a woman can have is with other women, as the women in her works are nothing but supportive of each other.
