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

Whether her subject is growing up in Minnesota, cross-dressing, or the novel, Siri 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 contemporary woman 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.

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