Irons in the Fire

Publisher: Barrytown/Station Hill Press, Inc.

This book is described by Nor Hall as “a praise-piece to duplicitous metal-artful and harrowing-and to its handlers.” Part One, "Irons in the Fire," is a prose character sketch of iron and iron workers, “the people who work iron and can’t keep their hands off it.” These are strangely passionate people (the real “Iron Johns” and “Janes”!) with “a compulsion to adore that binds them in an essential community of iron men and ferrous women.” Offering a history, mythology, and psychology of the element iron, both alchemical and industrial, this work is a major addition to the tradition of non-dogmatic psychological commentary on myth that includes Jung, Bachelard, and James Hillman, to which Hall adds a profoundly feminist dimension.

Nor Hall focuses her interdisciplinary work on the history of psychoanalysis, classical mythology, and modern imagination. Nor Hall is a noted playwright, imaginal dramaturge, and conducts classes in initiation psychology for a variety of audiences: literary, Jungian, feminist, artistic, theological, and academic. Her publications include The Moon and the Virgin, Those Women, Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine, Broodmales, and The End of the Iron Age. She has done extensive work in the field of myth in theater.