Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick. 1980 Virago Modern Classic edition, 151 pages. Hardwick was an essayist who cofounded the New York Review of Books with her husband, the poet Robert Lowell. The marriage was tumultous, and perhaps was the inspiration behind many of Hardwick's essays about artistic and literary women short-changed in their relationships.  Hardwick was also a fiercely opinionated book reviewer, aka the best kind. In her obituary, the New York Times wrote: "She went on to dismiss most well-made plots as mere contrivance, 'offensive to the contemporary novelist,, and to praise such 'linear and episodic' works as Renata Adler’s 'Speedboat' and Thomas Pynchon’s 'V,' mirrors of contemporary disorder she later reflected in her own well-reviewed third novel, 'Sleepless Nights. (1979)." Sleepless Nights is a semi-autobiographical work that the equally critical Mary McCarthy blurbed "perfect...pierces the heart."

Condition: Good used copy, corner bent, name on inside cover.

"Can it be that I am the subject?"