A Dialogue on Love

As a founder of the academic discipline of ""queer studies,"" Sedgwick's bailiwick is postmodern discourse on sexuality, though she has previously avoided disclosing much about her personal life. Having embarked on therapy for depression while recovering from breast cancer, Sedgwick (Epistemology of the Closet, etc.) finally confronts the connection between her own sexual nature and her life's work, while also facing her feelings about death and family. In a narrative structured around her sessions with a heterosexual male therapist, she spends a good deal of time questioning whether he can appreciate her intellect or ever understand her worldview, particularly her deep infatuations with gay men and her complex sadomasochistic fantasies. The sessions lead her to several realizations: that she has an attraction to the dying and the dead; that she is in love with her mother, who, according to a running family joke, is a latent lesbian; that, although she has been married for 25 years, she does have authentic links to ""queer"" experience; and that she is worthy of acceptance by others--as well as by her therapist. Including excerpts from her therapist's notes on their sessions and snippets of her own poetry, in addition to lots of chatty commentary, Sedgwick's reflections can come across as tediously self-indulgent. Although it strives to reveal depths of intimacy, her memoir reads more like an intellectual exercise than a straightforward account of psychic pain--and often leaves the reader at arm's length with a disquieting feeling of voyeurism that is likely to limit this memoir's appeal to Sedgwick's loyal following. (July)