A Left-Handed Woman

Starred review from August 29, 2022
In this rewarding collection, Thurman (Cleopatra’s Nose) brings together a remarkably varied collection of her New Yorker essays. She tackles the politics of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, Rose, in “O Pioneers!”; Rachel Cusk’s “power to dazzle and to condemn” in “World of Interiors”; and reading Dante during the pandemic in “Asylum Seeker.” There’s a wealth of her fashion coverage—“Darkness Wearable” covers the life and career of Alexander McQueen, known for his breakthrough, 1995 “Highland Rape” collection, while “Radical Chic” is a look at Miuccia Prada’s designs, which feature her “heroines” “fastidious from the waist up but wanton from the waist down.” Thurman’s longer essays are often her strongest, as her knack for incisive summary allows her to sweep authoritatively across broad subjects, as in “Maltese for Beginners,” a look at the world’s hyperpolyglots, a handful of language savants who speak at least 11 tongues fluently and are often left-handed. But small gems jump out, too, such as Thurman’s piece on Betty Halbreich, a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman: “Mothers send Halbreich their teenage daughters, often for the same reason that my mother enrolled me in driving school.” Masterfully avoiding solipsism and repetition, the author approaches each topic with a fresh eye. This solidifies Thurman as a master of the form.

September 1, 2022

A collection of essays on literature, history, politics, gender, fashion, and art by National Book Award winner and left-handed writer (hence the title) Thurman (Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire), who has written for the New Yorker since 1987. All but two of the 39 essays in this collection were originally published in that magazine between 2007 and 2021, often to complement a book release or a retrospective. Organized in this collection by nine broad themes (e.g., marriage, maternal relations, love), Thurman's essays explore a variety of subjects: the Chauvet Cave paintings; Dante; disappearing languages; a Bergdorf's personal shopper. She also writes about the work of artists like Marina Abramovic, Balthus, Grete Stern, and Eva Zeisel. Many essays focus on noteworthy historical women, including Helen Gurley Brown, Cleopatra, Simone de Beauvoir, Emily Dickinson, Amelia Earhart, Margaret Fuller, Vera Nabokov, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. The section devoted to fashion designers (Charles James, Ann Lowe, Guo Pei, Miuccia Prada, Elsa Schiaparelli) is especially well-researched and engaging and makes the art of couture more accessible to neophytes. VERDICT Because of the breadth of their topics, Thurman's well-written culture essays in this collection will appeal to many readers, particularly those interested in fashion. Highly recommended.--Erica Swenson Danowitz

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2022
A collection of essays from an incisive cultural observer. National Book Award winner Thurman, a biographer and essayist who has been a staff writer at the New Yorker for more than two decades, assembles 40 pieces, published from 2007 to 2021, on art, culture, books, and fashion, many focused on the "lost women who have been my specialty as a writer." The title comes from her own experience growing up left-handed, which taught her that somehow she wasn't "right," a feeling echoed by other women she profiles. While not all have been lost to history--Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson, Alison Bechdel, Helen Gurley Brown, for example--each of them defied the image of how a "right" woman could and should behave. Thurman's discoveries include ceramicist and industrial designer Eva Zeisel, a "maverick modernist"; avant-garde photographer Grete Stern; Black fashion designer Ann Lowe, who created Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding dress; and outspoken Betty Halbreich, a personal shopper at Bergdorf's, who gives Thurman a tour of her own cavernous closets. Thurman's fascination with fashion--as culture, craft, and art--informs pieces about Charles James, Alexander McQueen, Paul Poiret, and Miuccia Prada, occasioned by museum retrospectives. Thurman's interests are capacious: lost language speakers, hyperpolygots, Cleopatra, and, not least, art and artists. When she was in her early 20s, living abroad, she met Balthus and posed for his wife, also a painter. She recounts a visit to performance artist Marina Abramovic at her Hudson Valley home as well as her visits to sites of prehistoric cave paintings. She also chronicles her discussions with actors Charlotte Rampling (about sex) and Liv Ullmann (about Ingmar Bergman). In her introduction and in a few other essays, Thurman drops a few tantalizing personal details, but memoir is not her aim: "I write about the lives and work of other people in part to understand my own, while avoiding what I feel obliged to do here: talk about myself." Finely crafted, graceful, captivating pieces.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2022
Thurman's ensnaring introduction to this exceptional collection of zestful essays and profiles primarily written for the New Yorker between 2007 and 2021 reveals that she is the titular "left-handed woman." This opening piece richly sets the stage for the ardent, shrewd, and stylistically exhilarating inquiries that follow. Thurman's deep fascination with the ""mystery of how we become who we are"" underlies her explorations of the lives of women in fashion and the arts, especially "lost women." A worldly, incisive, and original thinker and observer, Thurman profiles photographer Lee Miller, graphic novelist Alison Bechdel, artist Marina Abramovic, and fashion designer and businesswoman Miuccia Prada. Readers will discover less familiar innovators, such as ceramicist and industrial designer Eva Zeisel, who survived many a geopolitical crisis and lived to be 105; German artist Isa Genzken; and Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei. A multilingual translator, Thurman also writes about endangered languages and those who are attempting to preserve them and muses over why Dante proved to be "a good companion for the pandemic." As one of our finest cultural critics, Thurman is always exciting company.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.