| Vertigo: A Memoir Contributor(s): DeSalvo, Louise (Author), Giunta, Edvige (Afterword by) |
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ISBN: 1558613951 ISBN-13: 9781558613959 Publisher: Feminist Press OUR PRICE: $16.10 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2002 Annotation: In her no-holds-barred family memoir, controversial scholar-critic Louise DeSalvo breaks the traditional silence around life for an Italian American girl coming of age in working-class Hoboken, New Jersey. Upon first publication, DeSalvo's memoirwhich sifts through painful memories of childhood incest, a sister's suicide, a mother's psychotic depression, and a father's violent rageenjoyed wide acclaim as an instant classic of the genre, written in "one of the most refreshing feminist voices around."-"San Francisco Chronicle" Marketing Plans: Louise DeSalvo is professor of English at Hunter College. She has published thirteen books, including the acclaimed "Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work," |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Women - Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 2002074252 |
| Series: Cross-Cultural Memoir Series |
| Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6.1" W x 8.96" (0.94 lbs) 304 pages |
| Themes: - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A scholar's memoir of growing up and the powerful forces that shaped her as a woman and a writer; "her story will inspire all women" (Library Journal). In this honest and outspoken reflection on her childhood, Louise DeSalvo explores the many ways literature saved her, both emotionally and practically. Born to Italian immigrants during World War II, DeSalvo takes readers back to the emotional chaos of her 1950s girlhood in New Jersey, growing up with her authoritative, distant father, her depressed mother, and a sister who later committed suicide. Reading and research were an anchor to her then, and widened her choices about her future in ways that weren't otherwise available to girls of that era. A Virginia Woolf scholar, DeSalvo wrote a ground-breaking study on the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the reclusive writer. Here, she mines her own early days--and her adolescent obsession with Hitchcock's Vertigo--in an attempt to give her own life's path "some shape, some order." Publisher's Weekly said, "Her clarity of insight and expression make this memoir] an impressive achievement," and the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed, "DeSalvo has one of the most refreshing feminist voices around." |