In this major contribution to lesbian theory/cultural studies, Lynda Hart analyzes the way violent women have been represented in literature, plays, film, and performance. Starting from the historical link between criminality and sexual deviancy, Hart builds a complex and original theory in which the shadow of the lesbian animates representations of violent women from the Victorian novel to the recent proliferation of films depicting women who kill. This cross-disciplinary study critiques constructions of gender, race, class, sexualities, and the cultural politics of the 1990s in one of the first book-length contributions to lesbian theory. Fatal Women is certain to be read widely by scholars, students, and anyone interested in the politics of representation.

Hart's introductory chapter constructs a theory of female violence across the discourses of sexology, criminology, and psychoanalysis. Subsequent chapters detail this theory in the Victorian novel and stage sensation Lady Audley's Secret, Frank Wedekind's Lulu Plays, which introduced the "invert" onto the European stage, the popular films Thelma and Louise, Mortal Thoughts, and Basic Instinct, the political intersection of race and gender in Single White Female, the performance art of Karen Finley in the context of the censorship debates, the fate of Aileen Wuornos, dubbed the first "female serial killer" by the FBI, and the Split Britches' performance Lesbians Who Kill.