“We all talk the talk about public intellectuals nowadays. Vivian Gornick walks the walk. The essays in Taking a Long Look could not be more direct, more authoritative, more alive with the pleasures of discovery or alert to the ambiguities of argument. Whether writing literary or political criticism, memoir, or feminist polemic, her mastery is assured.”
—George Scialabba, author of How to Be Depressed
“[Taking a Long Look] is illuminating and a welcome addition to the astute critic’s oeuvre.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Vivian Gornick is more than a formidable intelligence, she’s an entire sensibility. The essays collected here show how a mind shapes and becomes itself in engagement with the writers, thinkers, social facts and theories of her many days. The voice, at once her own and the expression of an entire culture—New York, working class, feminist, Jewish, both open-minded and skeptical—is a gift to be handed down from one generation to the next. “
—Marco Roth, author of The Scientists
“The lasting value of her work lies in her commitment to the question of what it means to feel ‘expressive’: to experience the feeling that tells a person ‘not approximately, but precisely’ who they are.”
—Dayna Tortorici, The New York Review of Books
“Vivian Gornick is one of the most important essayists of all time. Whether writing on the self, feminism, isolation or politics, she is urgent, sharp-eyed and vital. A superb collection.”
—Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations
“An engaging collection of sharp, lively essays.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Taking a Long Look is a magisterial volume of essays which span fifty years of cultural and feminist interrogation.”
—Lauren LeBlanc, Observer
“An exhilarating trip.”
—Elodie Rose Barnes, Lucy Writers
“Gornick’s work is frequently an examination of the seams of history and her unflinching focus shows how things might have been shaped, and perhaps still could be.”
—Morning Star
“Incisive.”
—New York Times
