Elizabeth Flock examines how three real-life women have used violence to fight back, and how views of women who defend their lives are often distorted by their depictions in media and pop culture: Brittany Smith, a young woman from Stevenson, Alabama, who killed a man she said raped her but was denied the protection of the Stand-Your-Ground law; Angoori Dahariya, leader of a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo, a fighter in a thousands-strong all-female militia that battled ISIS in Syria.
Her book is no rose-tinted call to arms. These women’s stories don’t lend themselves to easy morals ... Flock, who helped produce a 2022 documentary on Smith’s case, brings rigor and granularity to her reporting, down to the Baptist pop anthem Smith sings on her way to court. By comparison, the sections on Dahariya and Zibo are uneven ... By the time we get to Flock’s section on Zibo, she is testing the limits of our empathy. Here, violence is undertaken not in self-defense but rather in the service of a political ideal ... Flock’s scope is ambitious, but her subjects’ narratives sit uneasily together, and key observations are sometimes glossed over quickly ... Flock has done a service by portraying her subjects’ human complexity.
This sensitively reported book has an ambition similar to that of a Gloria Steinem talking circle ... The real versus the ideal, crops up again and again in Flock’s project ... There is a deep compassion in Flock’s account, but here and there you see her wrestle with her journalistic skepticism, wondering whether her subject is quite who she wishes to be.
Flock fills each section of The Furies with heartrending moments, but her profile of Smith is the book's strongest. It's the story to which she has the most access and its narrow focus allows her to more deeply explore systemic failures ... Flock conveys the scope of large cultural conflicts, but Dahariya and Zibo's stories lack the immersive quality of books like Katherine Boo's study of Indian corruption, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. The Furies, though, offers a powerful reminder not only of the difference individuals can make in larger struggles for justice, but also of the limits of their success.
