Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked

Description

A true and terrifying account of life as a stalker's obsession. A true story of obsessive love turning to obsessive hate, Give Me Everything You Have chronicles the author's strange and harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student, a self-styled 'verbal terrorist', who began trying, in her words, to 'ruin him'. Hate-mail - much of it violently anti-Semitic - online postings and public accusations of theft and sexual misconduct, have been her weapons of choice, and, as with more conventional terrorist weapons, have proved remarkably difficult to combat. James Lasdun's account, while terrifying, is told with compassion and humour, and brilliantly succeeds in turning a highly personal story into a profound meditation on subjects as varied as madness, race, Middle-Eastern politics, and the meaning of honour and reputation in the internet age.

James Lasdun's books include The Fall Guy and Give Me Everything You Have- On Being Stalked. He teaches creative writing at Columbia University and reviews regularly for the Guardian. His work has been filmed by Bernardo Bertolucci (Besieged) and he co-wrote the films Sunday, which won Best Feature and Best Screenplay awards at Sundance, and Signs and Wonders, starring Charlotte Rampling and Stellan Skarsg rd.

What is...most riveting about this strange and unsettling book is not the grim fascination of Lasdun's situation; it's the moral intelligence and intensity with which he examines it. -- Mark O'Connell * Observer * Give Me Everything You Have is a reminder, as if any were needed, of how easily, since the arrival of the Internet, our peace can be troubled and our good name besmirched. -- J. M. Coetzee James Lasdun's extraordinary tale of erotic obsession is so gripping...there is no greater narcotic than insanity combined with lust -- Camilla Long * Sunday Times * A riveting memoir... This must be the most informative, the most insightful, and the most beautifully written of any account from the victim's perspective of what has come to be called "cyberbullying". -- Joyce Carol Oates An extraordinarily odd and disturbing story... The poet in him is skilled at following tiny snags of thought into marvellous, rich mini-essays. -- Jenny Turner * Guardian *