A dazzling and difficult, fragmented and garnet-dark
autobiographical novel - in which Hardwick locates "lost things,"
the singularity of places, and the images of those she has cared
about from the Thirties up until the general vicinity of the
present. As the times and places swing by - Kentucky ("the cemetery
of home, education, nerves, heritage and tics"), Boston, Amsterdam,
Maine, Manhattan - scenes and stories and people are caught in bits
of lean prose and then brusquely strung together. Singer Billie
Holiday, "stately, sinister and determined." Stubbornly doomed
domestic workers tripped up by the "unfair disease" of
vulnerability and abrupt deprivations. "Skin-and-bones" Communists
of the Thirties. The "dead Ph.D.'s" of the Manhattan cocktail
scene, revived by wine in the evening to "burst forth with brave
little blossoms." A beautiful, self-indulgent, Marxist lover who
switches his women from night to night. A courteous Dutch doctor
who luxuriously cossets three women. A shopping-bag lady and a
muddled, impoverished grande dame: strangers staring at each other
on a N.Y. street, unaware of what they share - "mad strength,
hideous endurance." And a raucous club-car full of drunk men with
bright clothes - those who labor at filling stations for families
"that are from their youth already in their eyes." This is a
carefully choreographed dance of affective particles, and not easy
to encompass. But each set-piece shimmers with piercing observation
and long-nurtured feelings; and, though strenuous going as it's
being absorbed, this memoir/novel/poem will quietly, slowly sort
itself in the sympathetic reader's mind: "The train seems to be
always going straight ahead in the lucky, large empty country."
(Kirkus Reviews)
In "Sleepless Nights" a woman looks back on her life--the parade of
people, the shifting background of place--and assembles a scrapbook
of memories, reflections, portraits, letters, wishes, and dreams.
An inspired fusion of fact and invention, this beautifully
realized, hard-bitten, lyrical book is not only Elizabeth
Hardwick's finest fiction but one of the outstanding contributions
to American literature of the last fifty years.
General
Imprint: |
The New York Review of Books, Inc
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
NYRB Classics |
Release date: |
August 2001 |
First published: |
August 2001 |
Authors: |
Elizabeth Hardwick
|
Dimensions: |
204 x 128 x 10mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
128 |
Edition: |
Main |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-940322-72-1 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
0-940322-72-2 |
Barcode: |
9780940322721 |
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