The Argonauts

Description

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language and family Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of 'autotheory' offering fresh, fierce and timely thinking about desire, identity and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its centre is a romance- the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes the author's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family making. Writing in the spirit of public intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson binds her personal experience to a rigorous exploration of what iconic theorists have said about sexuality, gender, and the vexed institutions of marriage and child-rearing. Nelson's insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry for this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.

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'A superb exploration of the risk and the excitement of change...An exceptional portrait both of a romantic partnership and of the collaboration between Nelson's mind and heart.' New Yorker 'Maggie Nelson slays entrenched notions of gender, marriage and sexuality with lyricism, intellectual brass and soul-ringing honesty.' Vanity Fair 'A magnificent achievement of thought, care and art.' Los Angeles Times 'Nelson's writing is fluid-to read her story is to drift dreamily among her thoughts...She masterfully analyzes the way we talk about sex and gender.' Huffington Post 'One of the most intelligent, generous and moving books of the year.' STARRED review Publishers Weekly 'A book that will challenge readers as much as the author has challenged herself.' STARRED review Kirkus Reviews 'So much writing about motherhood makes the world seem smaller after the child arrives, more circumscribed, as if in tacit fealty to the larger cultural assumptions about moms and domesticity; Nelson's book does the opposite.' New York Times Book Review 'I finished this brilliant book triumphantly convinced of the worthwhileness of the search to capture every aspect of experience in words, and convinced of the necessary daring of specificity, whether we are talking about specific genders, specific sexual practices or specific feelings.' Guardian 'An absolutely extraordinary book...Extremely smart and very moving...Works so perfectly both as a really beautiful piece of memoir writing and also a really smart, intellectual look at gender.' A Case for Books 'The Argonauts offers no easy answers to the questions Nelson poses: but it is moving, in every sense of the word.' New Statesman 'A thought-provoking and fascinating read.' Otago Daily Times 'A wonderful genre-disregarding beast...Nelson has created a work that lets the reader into the intimate world of her love partnership and family, as well as engaging the intellect.' Readings 'I thought about copying down whole passages...Nelson's writing about gender is pretty wonderful. The reflexivity and circularity of her work resists over-simplifications.' Lifted Brow 'A song of praise for everyday, ordinary suburban life and simple pleasures.' Herald Sun 'An extraordinary record of a life that could only have been written in the early 21st century...[Nelson] is thoughtful, provoking and concise.' Stuff NZ 'Remarkable...Nelson has succeeded in combining self-expression and thinking through in a way that is as fundamental as it is compelling.' Age/Sydney Morning Herald 'Brisk, frank and funny. Nelson does not preach but takes us on her personal journey...She gives us space to find our own way and draw our own conclusions. Recommended.' New Zealand Listener 'Once I let myself be vulnerable to the author's intelligence, I began to be emboldened by the book. For all the names, the theories, and the philosophers, this book is a book about life. About humans and about love. Maggie Nelson is her own vehicle, her own tool, to analyse life.' Salient 'Nelson is an electrifying writer, and The Argonauts is an intensely personal, fiercely intelligent reflection on marriage, motherhood, desire and family.' Readings, Best Non-Fiction Books of 2016 'Shimmering with intelligence; fully alive to both the joyful and the difficult part of love; illuminating on motherhood.' Times Literary Supplement 'It might require a bit of work but The Argonauts rewards us with an expansive way of considering identity, caretaking, and freedom. Maybe it will change the way we think and speak about others and ourselves?' -- Emma Watson 'The Argonauts is a book of borrowing and sharing...an exhilarating tour de force drawing on queer and feminist theory as well as the personal narrative of Nelson's family.' New York Magazine