“In this gender-bending memoir, Maggie Nelson writes about the way both their bodies were changing, and about the intricacies of building her queer family.” New York Times
Description
An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of “autotheory” offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author’s relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson’s account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making.
Writing in the spirit of public intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson binds her personal experience to a rigorous exploration of what iconic theorists have said about sexuality, gender, and the vexed institutions of marriage and child-rearing. Nelson’s insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry of this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.
Praise
“In this gender-bending memoir, Maggie Nelson writes about the way both their bodies were changing, and about the intricacies of building her queer family.” New York Times
“A superb exploration of the risk and the excitement of change…An exceptional portrait both of a romantic partnership and of the collaboration between Nelson’s mind and heart.” New Yorker
“One of the most intelligent, generous, and moving books of the year.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A book that will challenge readers as much as the author has challenged herself.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[An] incredibly rich autobiographical meditation…Nelson blends philosophical inquiry, memoir, and gender criticism in a form she has dubbed ‘autotheory.’ Like her writing, Nelson’s theory blurs, eradicates, even breaks the margins of binary thinking and of the prevailing normative notion that we should each live a life that is ‘all one thing.’” Library Journal
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Aug 3, 2015 |
| Release Date | August 4, 2015 |
| Release Date Machine | 1438646400 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Biographies & Memoirs, Art & Literature, Nonfiction - Adult, Nonfiction - All |
Author Bio
Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic, and award-winning author of The Argonauts, Bluets, The Art of Cruelty, Jane: A Murder , and The Red Parts, among others.
Narrator Bio
Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic, and award-winning author of The Argonauts, Bluets, The Art of Cruelty, Jane: A Murder , and The Red Parts, among others.
Overview
An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of “autotheory” offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author’s relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson’s account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making.
Writing in the spirit of public intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson binds her personal experience to a rigorous exploration of what iconic theorists have said about sexuality, gender, and the vexed institutions of marriage and child-rearing. Nelson’s insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry of this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.
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