"Generally, men’s books are about abandoning consciousness and setting off for adventures and solving physical problems; Levine wanted to write a book with a female protagonist who wants a physical adventure but can’t have one. Levine “refused to leave the feminine behind,” which I took to mean that she didn’t want to drop a female character into a traditional male plot because that would mean abandoning the real constraints women face–the obligations/tethers to life that preclude “going out into the world!” This reminded me of Sylvia Path writing in her journal at eighteen about her “consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors, and soliders, barroom regulars–to be part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording … to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night”; but, she goes on to say (in a tone I can only read as a torpedo to the gut), she can do none of this, because, “I am a girl, a female, always in danger of assault.” The adventures of men and women are different."