In America
Page 39
“That’s enough, Edwin,” she said. “Dear Edwin.”
“Ah, a woman’s mercy. Quite undeserved. Most gratefully accepted. A woman’s generous, well-meant, incomprehending call to surcease.”
“Stop, Edwin.”
“I shall. Actually, there’s a bit of business that I’d like to go over now, if you wouldn’t mind. It’s after you enter, and Portia says to me … I mean, it’s that moment when Shylock says, to you, to Portia … I mean, Marina, I think we can improve the moment. Maybe, I’m not sure, you can touch me. I’m not entirely averse to a new piece of business here. I am not so pledged to tradition. And I have an absolute loathing of empty repetition. But I hate improvisation. An actor can’t just make it up. Shall we promise each other, here and now, always to tell first when we’re going to do something new? We have a long tour ahead of us.”
By Susan Sontag
Fiction
THE BENEFACTOR
DEATH KIT
I, ETCETERA
THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
THE VOLCANO LOVER
Essays
AGAINST INTERPRETATION
STYLES OF RADICAL WILL
ON PHOTOGRAPHY
ILLNESS AS METAPHOR
UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN
AIDS AND ITS METAPHORS
Filmscripts
DUET FOR CANNIBALS
BROTHER CARL
Play
ALICE IN BED
A SUSAN SONTAG READER
Additional Praise for Susan Sontag’s In America
“Sure-footed and wonderfully daring.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Like its brilliant essayist author, this ‘novel’ defies every convention of storytelling.… Most original and innovative.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Cerebral … buoyant, joyful, and funny.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Sontag weaves an expansive broad narrative cloth here, keeping us under her spell until the very last word.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Sontag uses dense, elegant language, inventive dialogue, impassioned monologue, and diary entries to lure the reader more deeply into the fascinating historical journey of a powerful actress.… Sontag triumphs once again with her gift for turning history into riveting fiction.”
—Library Journal
“A fascinating exploration of what’s real in a culture that preaches authenticity but worships artificiality.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“A powerful story of a woman transcending herself … Mesmerizing.”
—Palo Alto Daily News (California)
“[In America] showcases Sontag’s gift for cultural commentary and her eye for sumptuous detail.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Sontag crafts a novel of ideas in which real figures from the past enact their lives against an assiduously researched, almost cinematically vivid background.”