Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. 310 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

1. "An insightful and provocative exploration of the relationship between motherhood and art through the lives of women artists and writers. What does it mean to create, not in "a room of one's own," but in a domestic space? Do children and genius rule each other out? In The Baby on the Fire Escape, award-winning biographer Julie Phillips traverses the shifting terrain where motherhood and creativity converge. With fierce empathy and vivid prose, Phillips evokes the intimate struggles of brilliant artists and writers, including Doris Lessing, who had to choose between her motherhood and herself; Ursula K. Le Guin, who found productive stability in family life; Audre Lorde, whose queer, polyamorous union allowed her to raise children on her own terms; and Alice Neel, who once, to finish a painting, was said to have left her baby on the fire escape of her New York apartment. A meditation on maternal identity and artistic greatness, The Baby on the Fire Escape illuminates some of the most pressing conflicts in contemporary women's lives"--

Subject

1. Motherhood and the arts
2. Women artists > Family relationships
3. Women authors > Family relationhips
4. Motherhood in art
5. Motherhood in literature

Genre/Form

1. Biographies.

Contents

1. The Mind-Baby Problem -- "The Presiding Genius of Her Own Body" -- Outlaw Mothering : Alice Neel (1900-1984) -- All the Time : Art Monsters and Maintenance Work -- The Discomfort Zone : Sex and Love -- Incompatible Pleasures : Doris Lessing (1919-2013) -- The Discomfort Zone : The Unavailable Muse -- "Poems Are Housework" : Books versus Babies -- All Happy Families : Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) -- The Discomfort Zone : Ghosts -- The Discomfort Zone : Late Success -- Mother, Poet, Warrior : Audre Lorde (1934-1992) -- The Discomfort Zone : Not Being All There -- Freedom : Alice Walker (1944-) -- The Baby on the Writing Desk, or, Two Things at Once -- Her Own Version : Angela Carter (1940-1992) -- Time and the Story.

Call number

1. JQE 22-823

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references (pages 308-310).

Author

1. Phillips, Julie, author.

Title

1. The baby on the fire escape : creativity, motherhood, and the mind-baby problem / Julie Phillips.

Publisher

1. New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2022]

Copyright date

1. ©2022

Edition

1. First edition.

Type of content

1. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated

Type of carrier

1. volume

Bibliography

1. Includes bibliographical references (pages 308-310).

Other form:

1. Online version: Phillips, Julie. Baby on the fire escape. First edition. New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2022] 9780393635157 (OCoLC)1312740378

LCCN

1. 2022004660

Other standard identifier

1. 40031213696

ISBN

1. 9780393088595 hardcover
2. 0393088596 hardcover

Research call number

1. JQE 22-823