Thelma Adams

Thelma Adams combines American novels and film criticism with a sustained interest in women's perspectives in both history and screen culture. The Last Woman Standing reimagines the early life of Josephine Marcus, following her journey from a Jewish family in San Francisco to Tombstone and her relationships with Johnny Behan and Wyatt Earp. Lake Union Publishing issued the novel in 2016. Adams had already published Playdate, a contemporary comic novel, and later wrote Bittersweet Brooklyn, another historical novel centred on a woman negotiating family and social constraint. Her criticism has appeared in outlets including the New York Post, Us Weekly, Yahoo Movies, The New York Times, and Variety, and she twice chaired the New York Film Critics Circle. That critical background informs her attention to who controls a familiar narrative. In The Last Woman Standing, a legendary western setting is approached through Josephine's choices, vulnerabilities, Jewish identity, and struggle for independence rather than through the gunmen who usually dominate the story.