The End of the Novel of Love

Vivian Gornick, "one of the most vital and indispensable essayists of our cultural moment" (Phillip Lopate), has been widely acclaimed for her two books of memoir, Fierce Attachments and Approaching Eye Level. She lives in New York City.

Reading [Gornick] is a thrilling, invigorating, challenging experience. -Barbara Fisher, The Boston Sunday Globe

"Vivian Gornick's prose is so penetrating that reading it can be almost painful. . . . [The End of the Novel of Love]-in which she examines various connections between love and literature-stands out as a model of luminous clarity." -Susie Linfield, Los Angeles Times

"[Gornick] is fearless. . . . Grounded as she is in the moral breadth, psychological acuity, esthetic sophistication and infinite sense of life we expect from good novels and good readers alike, Gornick can listen to what a pair of old married friends casually say to each other over dinner in a Chinese restaurant and detect change in the Zeitgeist. . . . Reading her essays, one is reassured that the conversation between life and literature is mutually sustaining as well as mutually corrective, and that it is likely to continue both in spite of and because of our changes of heart-in love or out of it." -Elizabeth Frank, The New York Times Book Review

"The End of the Novel of Love is small in bulk but large in implication. The book is a pleasure and a stimulus: persuasive, finely wrought, quivering with intelligence." -George Scialabba, Boston Review