Like Love
Essays and Conversations
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- US$12.99
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- US$12.99
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A career-spanning collection of inspiring, revelrous essays about art and artists
Like Love is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson’s brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes, and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson’s passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide—from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker—but certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression, and perversity; the roles of the critic and of language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.
Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking, and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This sinewy collection by National Book Critics Circle Award winner Nelson (On Freedom) brings together previously published pieces about artists, literature, and the creative process. She reviews such novels as Samantha Hunt's The Seas and Ben Lerner's 10:04, marveling at the latter's ability to inspire a sense of purpose in readers while envisioning a near-future New York City wracked by climate change. Other selections pay tribute to personal heroes of Nelson's. For instance, "The Grind" celebrates the "mind-blowing, consensual, victimless perversion" of the Prince song "Darling Nikki," and "The Reenchantment of Carolee Schneemann" expounds on how the theme of sexual liberation lies at the heart of the performance artist's oeuvre. Philosophical conversations with photographer Moyra Davey, poet Simone White, and other artists meditate on creativity, desire, and shame; the highlight is a winding exchange with Björk about art's ability to make "new things feel possible." The variety of subjects and styles will hold readers' attention, and few will be unmoved by Nelson's soulful elegy for her friend Lhasa de Sela. Nelson describes the songwriter as an otherworldly, larger-than-life figure in intimate recollections of their high school travails, their eventual growing apart after college, and the devastation Nelson felt after learning of Lhasa's death from cancer at age 37 in 2010. This is a masterful showcase for Nelson's wide-ranging intellect and critical prowess.
