“'Basic Black with Pearls' contains overt references to Virginia Woolf and covert ones to feminist classics like Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening' and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper.' The scholar Ruth Panofsky, who writes extensively about Weinzweig, sees echoes of George Eliot.”

Canadian journalist, editor, and crime fiction authority

Sarah Weinman is a Canadian journalist, editor, and crime fiction authority. She is known for her work on crime writing and for her book The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World. The book examines the kidnapping and captivity of 11-year-old Florence Sally Horner by a serial child molester, a case widely believed to have influenced Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. It drew attention in reviews from NPR, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe.