Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th-Century Women Writers will be published by Overlook Press, New York in March 2010. It will be published by Duckworth Overlook, London in May 2010.
What they have said so far:
"formidably well-read...controversial and provocative" - The Independent
"She raises important questions about how sexual choice relates to a writer's work and how things have changed for women writers" - Financial Times
"readable and thoughtful" - Independent on Sunday
"McDowell takes an original tack in her book" - Sunday Times
"This is a terrific study" - The Herald
"McDowell, a literary journalist in Scotland, has culled incredibly juicy details. With so many affairs and broken hearts, the most surprising thing is that anything got written in the last 100 years." - New York Times Book Review
"It is laudatory that McDowell has set herself against the tenor of much of the critical discourse on the price of female talent...overall this is a welcome addition to the lives of writers in love and lust." -The New Republic
"Between the Sheets explores the messy intersection on art, lust, fame, and power. McDowell mines letters and diaries to give us rare insight into the POV of the female halves of some very celebrated literary couples...Suddenly, these feminist-lit figures seem more real and more grand. We feel the love and heartache that drove them to write" - BUST Magazine
"Lesley McDowell's new book, Between the Sheets: Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th-Century Women Writers, ditches some well-worn biographical tropes and sets out to make an interesting point about female authors: that we often think of their love lives as tragic not because they were, but because they're women." - AOL's Lemondrop.com
"McDowell culls her information from diaries, letters, and journals, which, in all, makes for a thorough but accessible reading. The information being imparted is not revelatory, but the subtle, argumentative slant of the text is laudable for its elevation of women commonly stereotyped as victims who lived passive lives in relation to the men they loved. Anyone interested in some crisp, literary gossip should take a look at this book." - Feminist Review
"Critic, novelist and literary journalist McDowell (The Picnic) takes a scholarly but fascinating look at the love lives of women writers, revealing how writers like Anais Nin, Simone de Beauvoir and Sylvia Plath were affected by their romantic liaisons...Would they have become writers without their entanglements with these men? And was success in their art ultimately worth the heartbreak? This stirring account lets their devotees decide." - Publishers Weekly