Overview
Equal parts revelation and inspiration, these eleven essays combine a memoir of an exotic life, reflections on the art and craft of writing, and a brilliant examination of the always complex relationship between fiction and life. An account of translating a difficult mother into fiction, "Taming the Gorgon," becomes a poignant and hilarious meditation on the intricate knot binding mothers and daughters. The story of a scandal created by publication, "Sex with the Servants," becomes an inquiry into the porous boundary between private truth and public betrayal.
Whether examining the difference between a story told and a story written, or describing the trials and rigors of teaching writing to pay the rent, Freed surprises, instructs, and entertains. Learned, opinionated, and wickedly funny, Freed tears off all fictional disguises and exposes the human being behind the artist. For writers, readers, or anyone engaged in literature, this is essential reading.
Synopsis
Equal parts revelation and inspiration, these eleven essays combine a memoir of an exotic life, reflections on the art and craft of writing, and a brilliant examination of the always complex relationship between fiction and life. An account of translating a difficult mother into fiction, "Taming the Gorgon," becomes a poignant and hilarious meditation on the intricate knot binding mothers and daughters. The story of a scandal created by publication, "Sex with the Servants," becomes an inquiry into the porous boundary between private truth and public betrayal.
Whether examining the difference between a story told and a story written, or describing the trials and rigors of teaching writing to pay the rent, Freed surprises, instructs, and entertains. Learned, opinionated, and wickedly funny, Freed tears off all fictional disguises and exposes the human being behind the artist. For writers, readers, or anyone engaged in literature, this is essential reading.
The New York Times Book Review - Holly Brubach
Reading books about writing is, in my experience, like reading books about sex: I'd rather be doing it. The telescoping of all life to a single activity, the ruminations on technique, the author's private epiphanies tend to make me restless. And often bored, since the caliber of most writing about writing is, oddly enough, rather low. Lynn Freed's Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home is the welcome exception—a wry, lively series of essays…on the parallel worlds of fiction and life, and the merciless task of shuttling between them. As in The Mirror, the finest of her novels, and The Curse of the Appropriate Man, a highly acclaimed recent story collection, this memoir of her formation as a writer is characterized by such virtuosity and rigor that the reader is tempted time and again to linger, admiring the view, retracing the shape of a sentence.
Editorials
Holly Brubach
Reading books about writing is, in my experience, like reading books about sex: I'd rather be doing it. The telescoping of all life to a single activity, the ruminations on technique, the author's private epiphanies tend to make me restless. And often bored, since the caliber of most writing about writing is, oddly enough, rather low. Lynn Freed's Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home is the welcome exception—a wry, lively series of essays…on the parallel worlds of fiction and life, and the merciless task of shuttling between them. As in The Mirror, the finest of her novels, and The Curse of the Appropriate Man, a highly acclaimed recent story collection, this memoir of her formation as a writer is characterized by such virtuosity and rigor that the reader is tempted time and again to linger, admiring the view, retracing the shape of a sentence.—The New York Times Book Review
Jonathan Yardley
For Freed, the most important experience has been leaving home, "the conundrum of alienation and belonging," "place and displacement." It is, obviously a subject of immense pertinence and interest in today's world, and in both fiction and nonfiction Freed has explored it with acuity and sensitivity. She also, it should be mentioned (and not merely in passing), writes with acuity and honesty about herself and her family; the recollections of her pleasingly eccentric mother and father are among the many attractions of this book. But mainly it is about writing, and it is one of the best books on that complex, elusive subject to come my way in a long time.— The Washington Post