cover image Ornament and Silence: Essays on Women's Lives

Ornament and Silence: Essays on Women's Lives

Kennedy Fraser. Alfred A. Knopf, $25 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-394-58539-0

These thoughtful, well-crafted essays by Fraser (Scenes from the Fashionable World), previously published in Vogue and the New Yorker, deal largely with the relationship between creative women and the men in their lives. In an extended piece, the author explores the life and work of Russian emigre writer Nina Berberova, whose literary achievements (The Italics are Mine) were accomplished after she left her lover, Russian poet Vladislav Khodasevich. Other articles deal with the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the life of Virginia Woolf and with Edith Wharton's successful struggle to find sexual freedom. Fraser includes several perceptive essays on writers and artists, such as novelist Paul Scott and painter Henri Matisse, that examine the women who influenced them both positively and negatively. Of particular interest are Fraser's reflections on the time she spent working as a young writer at the New Yorker with famed editor William Shawn. (Nov.)