Why I love this feminist who hit nuns and shot Andy Warhol

Just as I was feeling frustrated about the lack of robust books on feminism I spot a real corker: Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote SCUM (and Shot Andy Warhol). Solanas, for those of you who have never had the para-sexual pleasure of reading her work, was not your fun feminist. Solanas, who died in 1988 aged 52, did not write comforting screeds about how women can break through the glass ceiling or how to cope with motherhood. She railed against men, blaming them entirely for her miserable life and for the hell that women suffer under patriarchy. Solanas, as the biography brilliantly highlights, made herself extremely unpopular by pointing out the obvious. She also shot the artist Andy Warhol, but we all have our moments.

This painstakingly researched biography, by feminist and academic Breanne Fahs, tracks the truly extraordinary life of Solanas, a revolutionary feminist and bohemian artist who was faily mad throughout her life, and, as is perfectly proper and dignified for a woman of her stature, went totally mad.