A Plea for Eros - by Siri Hustvedt (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the author of the international bestseller What I Loved, a provocative collection of autobiographical and critical essays about writing and writers.

Whether her subject is growing up in Minnesota, cross-dressing, or the novel, Hustvedt's nonfiction, like her fiction, defies easy categorization, elegantly combining intellect, emotion, wit, and passion. With a light touch and consummate clarity, she undresses the cultural prejudices that veil both literature and life and explores the multiple personalities that inevitably inhabit a writer's mind. Is it possible for a woman in the twentieth century to endorse the corset, and at the same time approach with authority what it is like to be a man? Hustvedt does. Writing with rigorous honesty about her own divided self, and how this has shaped her as a writer, she also approaches the works of others--Fitzgerald, Dickens, and Henry James--with revelatory insight, and a practitioner's understanding of their art.

Review Quotes

"Clear, elegant writing ... Readers will find both emotional and intellectual resonance in Hustvedt's deeply personal essays." --Publishers Weekly

"As accomplished and intelligent as the author's fiction--which is saying a lot." --Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Siri Hustvedt is the author of The Blindfold and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, which are available from Picador. Her essays on art, Mysteries of the Rectangle, are available from Princeton Architectural Press. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Paul Auster.