A Left-Handed Woman
Essays
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE 2023 PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY
A collection of essays from Judith Thurman, the National Book Award–winning biographer and New Yorker staff writer.
Judith Thurman, a prolific staff writer at The New Yorker for more than two decades, has gathered a selection of her essays and profiles in A Left-Handed Woman. They consider our culture in all its guises: literature, history, politics, gender, fashion, and art, though their paramount subject is the human condition.
Thurman is one of the preeminent essayists of our time—“a master of vivisection,” as Kathryn Harrison wrote in The New York Times. “When she’s done with a subject, it’s still living, mystery intact.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this rewarding collection, Thurman (Cleopatra's Nose) brings together a remarkably varied collection of her New Yorker essays. She tackles the politics of Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose, in "O Pioneers!"; Rachel Cusk's "power to dazzle and to condemn" in "World of Interiors"; and reading Dante during the pandemic in "Asylum Seeker." There's a wealth of her fashion coverage—"Darkness Wearable" covers the life and career of Alexander McQueen, known for his breakthrough, 1995 "Highland Rape" collection, while "Radical Chic" is a look at Miuccia Prada's designs, which feature her "heroines" "fastidious from the waist up but wanton from the waist down." Thurman's longer essays are often her strongest, as her knack for incisive summary allows her to sweep authoritatively across broad subjects, as in "Maltese for Beginners," a look at the world's hyperpolyglots, a handful of language savants who speak at least 11 tongues fluently and are often left-handed. But small gems jump out, too, such as Thurman's piece on Betty Halbreich, a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman: "Mothers send Halbreich their teenage daughters, often for the same reason that my mother enrolled me in driving school." Masterfully avoiding solipsism and repetition, the author approaches each topic with a fresh eye. This solidifies Thurman as a master of the form.
