About the Book
A provocative and wide-ranging conversation between two distinctive women -- one American and one French -- on the dilemmas, benefits, and demands of womanhood.
A provocative and wide-ranging conversation between two distinctive women-one American and one French-on the dilemmas, rewards, and demands of womanhood.
Lisa Alther and Fran oise Gilot have been friends for more than twenty-five years. Although from different backgrounds (Gilot from cosmopolitan Paris, Alther from small-town Tennessee) and different generations, they found they have a great deal in common as women who managed to support themselves with careers in the arts while simultaneously balancing the obligations of work and parenthood.
About Womenis their extended conversation in which they talk about everything important to them- their childhoods, the impact of war on their lives and their work, and their views on love, style, self-invention, feminism,and child rearing. They also discuss the creative impulse and the importance of art as they ponder what it means to be a woman.
About the Author :
LISA ALTHER was born in 1944 in Tennessee. She is widely known for her first novel,Kinflicks(1975), a feminist coming-of-age narrative that broke new ground in terms of what could be written and talked about. She is the author of seven additional works of fiction, a memoir, and a narrative history of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Her books have been published in seventeen languages and have appeared on bestseller lists worldwide.
FRAN OISE GILOT was born in 1921 in Paris. She was a part of the emerging School of Paris. In 1943 she met Pablo Picasso, with whom she had a decade-long relationship.She is the author of the bestsellingLife with Picasso, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages;Matisse and Picasso;and other books. She married the French painter Luc Simon and later the American vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk. Gilot's workis included in the collections of many museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She was made Chevalier and then Officier de la Legion d'honneur.
Review :
“[Alther and Gilot] provide vivid conclusions from their lived experience ... About Women gives you a feeling of access to the shared salon of two brilliant women ... [it] whets one’s appetite for good talk about women’s lives.”
—Phyllis Rose, New York Times Book Review
"About Women is full of poignant microhistories and insightful observations about art, culture, and ideology ... History and individual experience are never wholly disentangled, and in these pages their intersection has a pulse ... Gilot and Alther are highly intelligent, thoughtful and perceptive."
—Anna Wiener, New Republic
"Fascinating as a historical document, a real-time look at two women as they wrestle with and negotiate the tenets of modern feminism in their own lives ... [This] kind of discourse between two women analyzing their own experiences of their own lives feels like precisely what feminists should celebrate."
—Julia Felsenthal, Vogue.com
"In this tribute to the length and quality of their friendship, the authors adeptly draw one another out, challenge each other, and build on each other’s ideas. The conversation is consistently funny, interesting, and thoughtful."
—Publishers Weekly
"The narrative is loose and fluid, giving readers an inside look into the personal lives of these two women as they converse about religion, sex, or child-rearing over cups of tea or glasses of wine ... Entertaining, informative conversations between two women friends."
—Kirkus Reviews
"I’ve often wondered about sitting at a banquet of the gods, listening to them talk. It’s the sound of heaven. But it comes to humming life in About Women, where two of the most interesting women of our time, the novelist Lisa Alther and the painter (and former partner of Picasso) Françoise Gilot, engage in a wide-ranging and bracing conversation on the experience of womanhood. Their backgrounds could not be less similar; but they trade stories and repeatedly converge in stunning ways to illumine the ways that women love and work, find meaning in their daily lives, balance tradition and innovation. Both are highly creative women, and they rub against each other in exactly the right ways, shedding a brilliant fantail of sparks. I’ll read this book again and again."
—Jay Parini, author of The Last Station
"Reading About Women is a privilege. I felt as if I were eavesdropping on a juicy private conversation between two of the cleverest, most sophisticated cultural figures in the Western world. Besides coming to know Alther's and Gilot’s idiosyncratic families of origin and the wellsprings of their respective creative careers, I was challenged to reconsider the connection between fashion and feminism, the difference between Catholics and Episcopalians, between France, England, and the American South, between harassment and flirting, and why, when they disagreed with each other, they both made sense to me. By the end of this feast of a book, I thought about their remarkable friendship and felt envy."
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate and a founding editor of Ms. magazine
"A writer and an artist hold a conversation and ask the big question: how can women live meaningful and creative lives? Everything is discussed: philosophy, love, art, literature, childhood, and fashion are examined from different perspectives. The result is an intimate, edifying, and fascinating book."
—Madeleine Kunin, former governor of Vermont and author of The New Feminist Agenda
"The best eavesdropping book I've ever read." —Steve Fischer, Executive Director, New England Independent Booksellers Association
