The authors here gathered would have merited the curious epithet of "evaporated" coined by Gustave Flaubert and endorsed by Mario Vargas Llosa in his excellent essay on Madame Bovary. A contemporary "bad" one, "evaporated", is not a sexually liberated, adventurous or disobedient woman, but one who lets herself be dragged by misfortune, passive before self-destruction, fearful of glory, and a slave to her fears, complexes and passions None of these great women had an easy life, almost none did anything to improve it and all, without exception, had a tragic end that borders on reflection. Includes essays about Kathy Acker, Delmira Agustini, Pita Amor, Djuna Barnes, Jane Bowles, Leonora Carrington, Kate Chopin, Elena Garro, Claire Goll, Alice James, Sarah Kane, Anna Kavan, Katherine Mansfield, Carson McCullers, Dorothy Parker, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Alejandra Pizarnik, Sylvia Plath, Jean Rhys, Albertine Sarrazine, Anne Sexton, Mary W. Shelley, Elizabeth Smart, James Tiptree Jr., Marina Tsvietáieva, Renée Vivien, Virginia Woolf, Unica Zürn.

Analyzes manifestations of certain type of women -according to Flaubert's concept of "evaporées", referring to flighty, lightheaded women- present in modern literature. Poring over works by authors ranging from Dorothy Parker to Anne Sexton, Pita Amor, Virginia Wolf, Sylvia Plath and others, Gil considers transgressive attributes of these women in context of mores and social attitudes of their time, and their generally dismal literary fates (most perishing by suicide).