Here are luminous sketches of characters she has met, of transgressive and often tragic women - prostitutes and mothers, spinsters and celebrities, famous writers and the homeless - that illuminate the era's racism, sexism, and poverty. Above all, here is prose blurring into poetry, language to lose - and perhaps to find - yourself in.

These magnetic essays are nothing less than a reckoning, dissecting relations between the sexes, women and writing, work and life. Hardwick's provocative essays were first published in 1974 and won loyal admiration from writers including Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, Cynthia Ozick, Derek Walcott, and Joyce Carol Oates.