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Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir

byMargo Jefferson

The Pulitzer Prize-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. Drawing on biographical detail, personal testimony, and historical context, the narrative gives Constructing a Nervous System a concrete sense of time, place, and consequence. Across the book, the memoir becomes a way to examine power, adaptation, responsibility, and change within biography & autobiography and literary criticism. Constructing a Nervous System ultimately offers a nuanced guide to the evidence, the human stakes, and the consequences that make this subject worth revisiting.

Publisher

Random House Publishing Group

Publication date

2022

Format

Print edition

Pages

320

ISBN

9781524748173