My Brilliant Friends

My Brilliant Friends is a group biography of three womens friendships forged in second-wave feminism. Poignant and politically charged, the book is a captivating personal account of the complexities of womens bonds. Nancy K. Miller describes her friendships with three well-known scholars and literary critics: Carolyn Heilbrun, Diane Middlebrook, and Naomi Schor. Their relationships were simultaneously intimate and professional, emotional and intellectual, animated by the ferment of the womens movement. Friendships like these sustained the generation of women whose entrance into male-dominated professions is still reshaping American society. The stories of their intertwined lives and books embody feminisms belief in the political importance of personal experience. Reflecting on aging and loss, ambition and rivalry, competition and collaboration, Miller shows why and how friendships ties matter in the worlds of work and love. Inspired in part by the portraits of the intensely enmeshed lives in Elena Ferrantes Neapolitan novels, My Brilliant Friends provides a passionate and timely vision of friendship between women.