Search results for ""Author Claire Dederer""

A hilarious, confrontational and moving story of one woman's attempts to navigate her way through the challenges of mid-life, for lovers of HOW TO BE A WOMAN and I'M NOT WITH THE BAND. 'Claire Dederer is not only a brilliant author, but an honest and brave one' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVEClaire Dederer's youth was wild, an endless cascade of beer and rock and acid and sex that left her benumbed and adrift. But then, after two decades of disciplined transformation, she'd become a successful writer, a faithful wife, and a mother - a real adult. That is, until one morning at 44, she found herself overcome by the same sexual cravings and ineffable sadness of her younger years. The hedonistic girl, 'that crazy bitch', was back - or had she never left?Frank and disarming, seductive and hilarious, Love and Trouble: A Mid-life Reckoning is Dederer's attempt to reckon with those urges, and to reconcile the girl she'd been with the woman she's become.

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***BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK***'Funny, lively and convivial... how rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read' MEGAN NOLAN, SUNDAY TIMES'An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life' JENNY OFFILLA passionate, provocative and blisteringly smart interrogation of how we experience art in the age of #MeToo, and whether we can separate an artist's work from their biography.What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? What makes women artists monstrous? And what should we do with beauty, and with our unruly feelings about it?Claire Dederer explores these questions and our relationships with the artists whose behaviour disrupts our ability to understand the work on its own terms. She interrogates her own responses and behaviour, and she pushes the fan, and the reader, to do the same. Morally wise, deeply considered and sharply written, Monsters gets to the heart of one of our most pressing conversations.'A blisteringly erudite and entertaining read . . . It's a book that deserves to be widely read and will provoke many conversations' NATHAN FILER'Wise and bold and full of the kind of gravitas that might even rub off' LISA TADDEO'An incredible book, the best work of criticism I have read in a very long time' NICK HORNBY

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A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A timely, passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of cancel culture, and of the link between genius and monstrosity. Can we love the work of controversial classic and contemporary artists but dislike the artist?A lively, personal exploration of how one might think about the art of those who do bad things —Vanity Fair • [Dederer] breaks new ground, making a complex cultural conversation feel brand new. —Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet  From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, Monsters is “part memoir, part treatise, and all treat” (The New York Times). This unflinching, deeply personal book expands on Claire Dederer’s instantly viral Paris Review essay,

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''How rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read'' MEGAN NOLAN, Sunday Times''An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life'' JENNY OFFILLPablo Picasso beat his partners. Richard Wagner was deeply antisemitic. David Bowie slept with an underage fan. But many of us still love Guernica and the Ring cycle and Ziggy Stardust.And what are we to do with that love? How are we, as fans, to reckon with the biographical choices of the artists whose work sustains us?Wildly smart and insightful, Monsters is an exhilarating attempt to understand our relationship with art and the artist in the twenty-first century.''An incredible book, the best work of criticism I have read in a very long time'' NICK HORNBY''Part memoir, part treatise, and all treat'' New York Times''Clever and p

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