Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion

Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm―these brilliant women are the central figures of Sharp. Their lives intertwine as they cut through the cultural and intellectual history of America in the twentieth century, arguing as fervently with each other as they did with the sexist attitudes of the men who often undervalued their work as critics and essayists. These women are united by what Dean terms as "sharpness," the ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit, a claiming of power through writing rather than position. Sharp is a vibrant and rich depiction of the intellectual beau monde of twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties at night gave out to literary slanging matches in the pages of the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books as well as a considered portrayal of how these women came to be so influential in a climate where women were treated with derision by the critical establishment. Mixing biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is an enthralling exploration of how a group of brilliant women became central figures in the world of letters despite the many obstacles facing them, a testament to how anyone not in a position of power can claim the mantle of writer and, perhaps, help change the world.

About the Author :
Michelle Dean is a journalist, critic, and the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle's 2016 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. A contributing editor at the New Republic, she has written for the New Yorker, Nation, New York Times Magazine, Slate, New York magazine, Elle, Harper's, and BuzzFeed. Bernadette Dunne, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC. She lives in Brooklyn.

Review :
"An elegant, incisive, and richly detailed account...Sharp is not simply a collection of distinct biographical essays but a vital composite portrait of the intellectual life of twentieth-century America. It's also a lot more fun to read than a deeply researched study of a group of intellectuals has any business being. A necessary book by a wonderful writer." -- "Mark O'Connell, author of To Be a Machine" "Dean makes the convincing argument that women's voices―if not necessarily feminist ones―did far more to define the last century's intellectual life than we realize." -- "New York Times" "Dean's literary bash is as stimulating and insightful as its roster of guests. She not only encapsulates their biographies and achievements with remarkable concision, but also connects the dots between them." -- "NPR" "Dunne's elegant performance adds great value to the insightful text. Her voice is lovely, and she has prepared impeccably, never missing the music in complex sentences and acing the trickiest pronunciations." -- "AudioFile" "Engaging portraits of brilliant minds. A useful take on significant writers 'in a world that was not eager to hear women's opinions about anything.'" -- "Kirkus Reviews" "Examines women who battled a sexist industry and a gossipy social scene (which sometimes led to public feuds) as they made their rise as public intellectuals, critics, and artists." -- "Esquire" "Features intertwining depictions of our most important twentieth-century female essayists and cultural critics...A hybrid of biography, literary criticism, and cultural history." -- "Millions.com" "Few readers could fail to be impressed by both the research behind and readability of this first book by Dean...[A] stunning and highly accessible introduction to a group of important writers." -- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" "Michelle Dean has delivered an exquisite examination--both rigorous and compassionate--of what it has meant to be a woman with a public voice and the power to use it critically. This book is ferociously good." -- "Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author " "My platonic ideal nerdapalooza of a book, a study of seminal female writers...The whole is even greater than the sum of its incisive parts." -- "Parade" "Shrewd, discerning, fresh, and crisply composed interpretations of the temperaments, experiences, and sophisticated trailblazing works of these gutsy and transformative thinkers." -- "Booklist" "The women Dean profiles here were willing to be unpopular. That made them not only sharp, but brave...[Dean] deftly and often elegantly traces these women's arguments about race, politics and gender." -- "Los Angeles Times" "There can't be enough cultural histories which make the point that a woman intellectual must represent her own mind and not the collective mind of all her 'sisters.' Sharp is a brisk, entertaining, well-researched reminder that it's impossible to write―or think―without making life very messy for oneself, but to do so is an achievement well worth the pains." -- "Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?" "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 bestselling author " "What I like most about Michelle Dean's book Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion is its cumulative effect. It's not a biography of one or two or even three brilliant intellectuals, but ten: ten women writers who are variously funny, acerbic, insightful, opinionated, and complex. Together, they make a sisterhood, even though, Dean explains, most would likely balk at that notion." -- "Paris Review"