Sharp, Michelle Dean
Sharp, Michelle Dean
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Sharp
The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion

Author: Michelle Dean

Narrator: Bernadette Dunne

Unabridged: 11 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/10/2018

Synopsis

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 Michelle Dean

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.

About Bernadette Dunne

Bernadette Dunne is the winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul

Mary McCarthy saw Susan Sontag at a party, where else, and said to her “I hear you’re the new me.” **** This account of the careers of Dorothy Parker, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler and Janet Malcolm with walk-on parts for Rebecca West a......more

Goodreads review by Samantha

What a disappointment. This is a book about women who built careers on criticism, yet does very little to really, truly delve into the minefield of what it means to be a person whose very existence is “critical” (Living While Female) while turning the mirror around on the societies that deemed them......more

Goodreads review by Nick

I wrote this book because this history has never been as well-known as it deserves to be, at least outside certain isolated precincts of New York. Biographies had been written of all of them and devoured by me. But as biographies do, each book considered these women in isolation, a phenomeno......more

Quotes

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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)

“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

Awards

  • Book Riot Pick
  • Millions.com Pick
  • Vogue Pick
  • Harper’s Bazaar Pick
  • Vanity Fair Magazine Pick
  • Entertainment Weekly Pick
  • Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week
  • Kirkus Reviews Pick
  • Bitch magazine pick
  • New York Times   Bestseller
  • Refinery29 Pick
  • Glamour Magazine Pick
  • Newsweek Pick
  • Paris Review Selection
  • Esquire Pick
  • New York Times Pick
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