A delightful collection of essays on becoming a writer, by the
author of Ordinary Time (1993), which draws from literature,
feminism, psychoanalysis, and life experience. Mairs's writing is a
hybrid form of essay that can be both intellectual and abstract, as
well as intimately autobiographical. "I found my writing voice, and
go on finding it...by listening to the voices around me, imitating
them, then piping up on my own," says Malts, who began to find her
voice as a writer only in her 30s when she was already a graduate
student, married, a mother, and a survivor of a bout of depression
that landed her in a mental institution. It was then that she began
to listen "to the words and intonations of women as women." The
sources of her literary feminist awakening included the writings of
Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Alice Walker, and French feminist
theorist Julia Kristeva. But this slim volume is no academic tome.
Her essays are grounded in experiences that are particular to her
life - living with MS, or smaller moments such as a visit to a
psychic who refuses to "read" her. In "The Literature of Personal
Disaster," which first appeared in the New York Times Book Review,
Malts writes from the singular vantage point of a woman who, having
written about her own MS and suicidal depression, as well as her
husband's cancer, is now frequently asked to review works in this
"sub-genre." She snappily takes on the harsh critics of these
books, saying, "The narrator of personal disaster, I think, wants
not to whine, not to boast, but to comfort...it is possible to be
both sick and happy. This good news, once discovered, demands to be
shared." Voice Lessons should be both a comfort and a spiritual
guide to women writers in search of their own "voices." (Kirkus
Reviews)
Voice Lessons is a book about writing from a woman with a
remarkable story to tell and an utterly distinctive voice in which
to tell it. Nancy Mairs's essays have been called "triumphs... of
will, style, candor, thought and even form" (Los Angeles Times).
She has won acclaim for her autobiographical writing on themes from
living with depression to renewing a marriage, from sex to
religion. In Voice Lessons, Mairs's subjects are literary, but as
always her approach is personal, revealing, and inspiring. Mairs
first shares her sharply drawn story on how "finding a voice" as an
essayist transformed her life when she was a graduate student,
wife, and mother in her late thirties. In a tribute to the
liberating power of literature and feminist ideas, she shows how
the words of other writers made possible a new career, a new life
in difficult times. Voice Lessons goes on to explore other women's
writing and to outline a singular kind of literary life. Always
grounding her writing in personal experience, always making ideas
concrete, Mairs gives us essays on writing and the body, the
challenges of autobiography, the revelatory power of Virginia Woolf
and Alice Walker, the literature of personal disaster, and the art
of dealing with rejection. Articulate, witty, incisive, and
inspirational, Voice Lessons is a book for writers and aspiring
writers, and for everyone who loves women's writing.
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