Cover Image

Constructing a nervous system a memoir

"Stunning for her daring originality, the author of Negroland gives us what she calls "a temperamental autobiography," comprised of visceral, intimate fragments that fuse criticism and memoir. Margo Jefferson constructs a nervous system with pieces of different lengths and tone, conjo...

Full description

Main Author: Jefferson, Margo, 1947- (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York : Pantheon Books, [2022]
Edition: First edition.
Subjects:
Jefferson, Margo, > 1947-
African American women > Biography.
African American women critics > Biography.
African Americans > Race identity.
African Americans > Intellectual life.
African Americans > Social life and customs.
United States > Race relations > History > Anecdotes.
United States > Social life and customs > Anecdotes.
Autobiographies.
Anecdotes.
Summary: "Stunning for her daring originality, the author of Negroland gives us what she calls "a temperamental autobiography," comprised of visceral, intimate fragments that fuse criticism and memoir. Margo Jefferson constructs a nervous system with pieces of different lengths and tone, conjoining arts writing (poem, song, performance) with life writing (history, psychology). The book's structure is determined by signal moments of her life, those that trouble her as well as those that thrill and restore. In this nervous system: The sounds of a black spinning disc of a 1950's jazz LP as intimate and instructive as a parent's voice. The muscles and movements of a ballerina, spliced with those of an Olympic runner: template for what a female body could be. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Topsy finds her way into the art of Kara Walker and the songs of CeĢcile McLorin Salvant. Bing Crosby and Ike Turner become alter egos. W.E.B. DuBois and George Eliot meet illicitly, as he appropriates lines from her story "The Hidden Veil" to write his famous "behind the veil" passages in The Souls of Black Folk. The words of multiple others (writers, singers, film characters, friends, family) act as prompts and as dialogue. The fragments of this brilliant book, while not neglecting family, race, and class, are informed by a kind of aesthetic drive: longing, ecstasy, or even acute ambivalence. Constructing a nervous system is Jefferson's relentlessly galvanizing mis en scene for unconventional storytelling as well as a platform for unexpected dramatis personae"--
Physical Description: 197 pages ; 20 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 9781524748173
152474817X
Author Notes: Margo Jefferson was a theater and book critic for Newsweek and The New York Times. She won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism. Her writing has appeared in several publications including Vogue, New York magazine, and The New Republic. Her books include On Michael Jackson and Negroland: A Memior. She is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Similar Items