Dreaming of Hitler: Passions and Provocations - Hardcover

Merkin, Daphne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517706261 ISBN 13: 9780517706268

Publisher: Crown, 1997

Synopsis

Few writers today have created more  stir than Daphne Merkin--admired as much for her personal daring on the page as for the wit and power of her prose. Whether writing about the sexual pleasures of spanking (a piece that elicited a storm of response when it appeared in The New Yorker), losing her religion, her obsession with rock 'n' roll, her own failed marriage, or other vexed subjects, she is always tough-minded, compulsively readable, and at times recklessly candid. From her own cosmetic surgery "fix"  to her flirtation with the idea of lesbianism, from the subversive thrill of shoplifting to the hidden madness of family life--she takes on the taboos and sacred cows we're fascinated by but seldom talk about. The bold and startling title essay, in which she confronts the demons of the Holocaust, is an example of this gifted writer at her most affecting: intensely self-probing but profoundly engaged with the world at large.

Once in a while a writer appears who can immerse herself in the complex, raging currents of her time and make sense of them. In this dazzling collection of maverick essays--at once bracingly intelligent, morally reflective, and richly entertaining--Daphne Merkin illuminates the often tragicomic secrets that tell the true story of the way we live now.

About this title

About the Author

Daphne Merkin's work appears regularly in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and other leading periodicals. Her highly regarded novel, Enchantment, won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. Born and raised in New York City, she is a graduate of Barnard College. She lives in Manhattan with her young daughter and is at work on a novel called The Discovery of Sex.

From Kirkus Reviews

A collection of essays and articles that startle, charm, challenge, amuse, and elucidate. Novelist Merkin (Enchantment, l986) writes nonfiction for such diverse publications as Esquire, Mirabella, Partisan Review, and the New Yorker. Her topics range from celebrity interviews with Richard Burton and Martin Scorsese to reflections on self-improvement, such as tanning and breast reduction. Among weightier matters are the guilt that Hedda Nussbaum must bear from the death of her daughter, Lisa, and the self-hatred that Merkin acquired about her Jewishness. What makes Merkin's reflections special is not the subject--how much has been written about Burton, Scorsese, and Growing Up Jewish in America?--but the quirky even-handedness of her approach. Nothing is too trivial to be taken seriously (e.g., sun-tanning) or too tragic to find its place in the scheme of daily life. Merkin's approach to both the solemn and the silly is at once good-humored and erudite, nonjudgmental and literate, emotionally adventurous. Merkin calls it ``risk-taking at one remove.'' Nevertheless, her expression of the ``truths that get whispered between women in private'' is on the edge, as in the chapters ``On Not Becoming a Lesbian'' and ``Spanking: A Romance.'' In the former, her preference for women as friends and companions does not translate into sexual preference, but a predilection for spanking as foreplay is confessed in the latter. A section exploring being a Jew includes the title essay, about both the Holocaust and self-hatred. It is at once extremely personal (they are, after all, her dreams) and universal (who hasn't had a fantasy of saving the world?). The author looks at the dark side of the human spirit without guilt or shame. Pungent observations tempered by graceful interpretation--and some very sharp wit. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0517706261
• ISBN 13: 9780517706268
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 363