Name: Sharp
ISBN: 9780802129246

Michelle Dean

From celebrated literary critic Michelle Dean, a powerful portrait of ten women writers who managed to make their voices heard amid a culture of sexism

Sharp

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week 'This is such a great idea for a book, and Michelle Dean carries it off, showing us the complexities of her fascinating, extraordinary subjects, in print and out in the world. Dean writes with vigor, depth, knowledge and absorption, and as a result Sharp is a real achievement' Meg Wolitzer, New York Times Dorothy Parker, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron and Janet Malcolm are just some of the women whose lives intertwined as they cut through twentieth-century cultural and intellectual life in the United States, arguing as fervently with each other as they did with the men who so often belittled their work as journalists, novelists, critics and poets. These women are united by their 'sharpness': an accuracy and precision of thought and wit, a claiming of power through their writing. Sharp is a rich and lively portrait of these women and their world, where Manhattan cocktail parties, fuelled by lethal quantities of both alcohol and gossip, could lead to high-stakes slanging matches in the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books. It is fascinating and revealing on how these women came to be so influential in a climate in which they were routinely met with condescension and derision by their male counterparts. Michelle Dean mixes biography, criticism and cultural and social history to create an enthralling exploration of how a group of brilliant women became central figures in the world of letters, staked out territory for themselves and began to change the world.

The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion

Elise Harris

I don't have words enough to say how amazing this book was!

Alexia

Thank you Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC and the opportunity to review this book!

The premise of this book sounded interesting, especially in the era of female empowerment we are living right now. I found the selection of women to talk about perfect. However, the writing style and it felt like reading a textbook for school on a subject that interests me and bores me at the same time, because of the pacing.

Full review on my blog.

Sharp

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