Like Love: Essays and Conversations (hardcover)

A CAREER-SPANNING COLLECTION OF INSPIRING, REVELROUS ESSAYS ABOUT ART AND ARTISTS

‘Like Love may be one of the most movingly specific, the most lovingly unruly celebrations of the ethics of friendship we have’ Guardian

‘A polyphonic assemblage . . . graceful and aesthetic, deftly crossing boundaries and definitions, a concordant symphony’ Irish Times

Like Love is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson’s brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson’s passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide – from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker – but certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression and perversity; the roles of the critic and language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.

Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.