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The Dead Ladies Project is an account of that journey—but it's also much, much more. Fascinated by exile, Crispin travels an itinerary of key locations in its literary map, of places that have drawn writers who needed to break free from their origins and start afresh. As she reflects on William James struggling through despair in Berlin, Nora Barnacle dependent on and dependable for James Joyce in Trieste, Maud Gonne fomenting revolution and fostering myth in Dublin, or Igor Stravinsky starting over from nothing in Switzerland, Crispin interweaves biography, incisive literary analysis, and personal experience into a rich meditation on the complicated interactions of place, personality, and society that can make escape and reinvention such an attractive, even intoxicating proposition.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 19, 2016 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781515923992
- File size: 242983 KB
- Duration: 08:26:12
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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July 4, 2016
In this unusual and absorbing travelogue, Crispin pursues some of her favorite dead artists to their places of exile, intent on learning how they were able to “scrape their lives clean and start again elsewhere.” Traveling throughout Europe, she draws comparisons among historical figures (William James, Nora Barnacle, Maud Gonne, and others), their personal challenges, and the ways in which Crispin grapples with the modern world and the life she left behind. Voice actress McFadden reads in a clear, sharp, and unwavering voice. She maintains a lively and energetic voice, which may seem at odds at times with the more morose and melancholic tone of the prose, but she keeps listeners engaged. Additionally, she handles accents and foreign language flawlessly, and her quoted voices come across as distinct and real. A Univ. of Chicago paperback. -
June 22, 2015
Crispin’s unusual and absorbing travelogue pursues some of her favorite dead artists to their places of exile, intent on learning how they were able to “scrape their lives clean and start again elsewhere.” The Bookslut founder considers Igor Stravinsky’s flight from occupied France for Switzerland, Margaret Anderson’s flight from an indecency charge after she serialized James Joyce’s Ulysses, and Somerset Maugham’s flight from an unbearable marriage, and she contemplates “those who use their force of will to change the direction of their own story.” Her affinity for the invisible woman (Nora Barnacle), the ambitious woman (Rebecca West), and the undomesticated, “unfit” woman (Maud Gonne) only gives Crispin a slight hold on understanding her own experience, the restlessness that slingshots her from place to place. Smart, brash, and self-aware, Crispin is a fearless observer, a purveyor of odd and wonderful detail, and an unflinching witness to her own stifling mental state. Though the big questions as well as the personal conflicts go unresolved, Crispin’s swift intelligence, fierce empathy, and dark humor offer up great insights as she discovers, if not a home, then an “ability to move through the world” and survive it. Agent: Judy Heiblum, Sterling Lord Literistic.
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