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Tannen writes from a post-Jungian, postmodern, feminist perspective. She asks if there is a difference in the manifestation of archetypal energy when Trickster is seen through a female rather than male imagination. She considers the legal and psychological enclosure of women's imagination and their re-emergence in various forms, ranging from Jane Austen to popular culture, including the female detective sleuth in late twentieth century novels and the television programme Sex and the City amongst others.
The book is admirable for its clarity. Tannen divides the book into four parts. In the Introduction, she defines her understanding and working definition of many terms, which is important as one can then see immediately her archetypal rather than developmental perspective. For her the postmodern, female Trickster has psychological authority, physical agency and bodily autonomy, refusing to be a victim and using humour and irony as subversive devices to transform and revolutionize through social work; that is to say, the woman who nurtures community rather than an individual child. In introducing the reader to the female Trickster she elaborates on the differences between the traditional and female Trickster and then considers why the fictional female