Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting?

by Florence King

(Once upon a time. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants believed that if the rest of the world was littered with ethnics who lacked the social graces, were inadequately educated, and were darker complectioned than was desirable, at least in America. WASPS and their standards governed. But now their ivory tower has been besieged, and WASPS have come to think of themselves as a minority group in a sea of aliens. Florence King has set out on a journey to find out what WASPS really were and are and how and why they think. Like an anthropologist, she provides us with a book of knowledge about WASPS and their habits that is as essential as knowing about the birds and the bees) (Ostensibly collections of essays they frequently turn in fictional pieces, literary burlesques and lampoons, character sketches and autobiographical ruminations)

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1936 to a bookish British father and a tomboy American mother, Florence King spent her childhood living with her parents, her maternal grandmother, and her grandmother's maid.

King showed talent in French, but unable to pursue it as a major at American University, she switched to a dual major of history and English. She attended the University of Mississippi for graduate school, but did not complete her M.A. degree after discovering she could make a living as a writer.

King, who lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia at the time of her death, retired in 2002, but resumed writing a monthly column for National Review in 2006. She died on January 6, 2016 at the age of 80.

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a remarkable analysis of the essence of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Despite (or because of) its satirical bent, I actually gained insight into myself, even extending to my intense - desire? belief? - that good food can somehow result from a completely ignored pot full of ingredients that have been unceremoniously glopped together (although I do not feel a compulsive need to add Campbell's soup to everything). I also learned some interesting history: Florence King analyzes Lizzie Borden as the natural by-product of such an emotionally repressed culture. I had no idea that her father's and step-mother's murders occurred after a long-standing rift over the allocation of property that she and her sister had protested by refusing to eat with the rest of the family and by attending a different church. King asserts that she had initially intended to poison them, but unable to procure the poison, she finally dissolved into a murderous rage. Nonetheless, she kept a cool head after the murders and also adhered to an eerily familiar code of near-honest dishonesty when providing testimony about them.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wicked funny and full of great quotable lines. The chapter on religion is absolutely hysterical.