Synopses & Reviews
From one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings) comes a memoir as electric as the title suggests (Maggie Nelson, author of On Freedom).
The award-winning critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson has lived in the thrall of a cast of others — her parents and maternal grandmother, jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes, and stars. These are the figures who thrill and trouble her, and who have made up her sense of self as a person and as a writer. In her much-anticipated follow-up to Negroland, Jefferson brings these figures to life in a memoir of stunning originality, a performance of the elements that comprise and occupy the mind of one of our foremost critics.
In Constructing a Nervous System, Jefferson shatters her self into pieces and recombines them into a new and vital apparatus on the page, fusing the criticism that she is known for, fragments of the family members she grieves for, and signal moments from her life, as well as the words of those who have peopled her past and accompanied her in her solitude, dramatized here like never before. Bing Crosby and Ike Turner are among the author's alter egos. The sounds of a jazz LP emerge as the intimate and instructive sounds of a parent's voice. W. E. B. Du Bois and George Eliot meet illicitly. The muscles and movements of a ballerina are spliced with those of an Olympic runner, becoming a template for what a black female body can be.
The result is a wildly innovative work of depth and stirring beauty. It is defined by fractures and dissonance, longing and ecstasy, and a persistent searching. Jefferson interrogates her own self as well as the act of writing memoir, and probes the fissures at the center of American cultural life.
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"Jefferson's unique perspective and relentless honesty and self-examination ensure that there's something worthwhile on every page...A dynamic, unflinchingly candid examination of the impacts of race and class on culture and the author's own life." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
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"Bold and roving...Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist Jefferson….creates a dance of memory and incisive cultural commentary that's deeply and refreshingly personal. This gorgeous memoir elevates the form to new heights." Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)
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"Jefferson glories in words....turning her keenly honed analysis on herself, her family, and her class, while relentlessly interrogating the broader underlying context of white racism." Booklist (Starred Review)
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"Thrillingly original...A fierce and fresh amalgamation of memoir and cultural criticism by one of the country's most compelling thinkers. This slim volume is saturated with brilliance." Library Journal (Starred Review)
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"Passion and erudition usually don't go together, but Margo Jefferson in her often painful mediations on being black and female consults a lifelong accumulation of thoughts about high and popular culture, about historic and contemporary literature, and entertainment and politics. She knows everything and has felt it all deeply. If you want to know who we are and where we've been, read Margo Jefferson." Edmund White, author of A Previous Life
About the Author
Margo Jefferson lives in New York City.