20th century
A01=Cathy Curtis
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author
Author_Cathy Curtis
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biography
boston
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HB
Category=NH
COP=United States
critic
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
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essayist
kentucky
Language_English
marriage
new york city
new york review of books
novelist
nyc
nyrb
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Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
robert lowell
scandal
sleepless nights
softlaunch
the dolphin
twentieth century
writer
Product details
- ISBN 9781324052081
- Weight: 305g
- Dimensions: 140 x 211mm
- Publication Date: 11 Jul 2023
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Born in Kentucky, Elizabeth Hardwick left for New York City on a Greyhound bus in 1939 and quickly made a name for herself as a formidable member of the intellectual elite. Her eventful life included stretches of dire poverty, romantic escapades and dustups with authors she eviscerated in The New York Review of Books, of which she was a cofounder. She formed lasting friendships with literary notables—including Mary McCarthy, Adrienne Rich and Susan Sontag—who appreciated her sharp wit and relish for gossip, progressive politics and great literature.
Hardwick’s life and writing were shaped by a turbulent marriage to the poet Robert Lowell, whom she adored, standing by faithfully through his episodes of bipolar illness. Lowell’s decision to publish excerpts from her private letters in The Dolphin greatly distressed Hardwick and ignited a major literary controversy. Hardwick emerged from the scandal with the clarity and wisdom that illuminate her brilliant work—most notably Sleepless Nights, a daring, lyrical and keenly perceptive collage of reflections and glimpses of people encountered as they stumble through lives of deprivation or privilege.
A Splendid Intelligence finally gives Hardwick her due as one of the great postwar cultural critics. Ranging over a broad territory—from the depiction of women in classic novels to the civil rights movement, from theatre in New York to life in Brazil, Kentucky and Maine—Hardwick’s essays remain strikingly original, fiercely opinionated and exquisitely wrought. In this lively and illuminating biography, Cathy Curtis offers an intimate portrait of an exceptional woman who vigorously forged her own identity on and off the page.
Cathy Curtis is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer and past president of Biographers International Organization. She has written four biographies, including A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning. Curtis lives in California.
