PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of Books... a consistently incisive and surprising new work of nonfiction ... The frequent meditations on global politics and contemporary works of art never feel like gratuitous digressions but constitute the most reliable pleasures of the text, and they serve to deepen what is ultimately an intimate and complex portrait of a life ... These various pasts are rendered in a present-tense prose that is direct and precise, consistently fresh, and admirably free from excesses of vanity or self-loathing. Recollections are handled like so many pieces of evidence that might throw fresh light on such old questions ... The conflict is familiar, but Low avoids the familiar responses, neither conforming to au courant progressive talking points, nor sinking into lazy, reactionary positions against them ... One’s ability to enjoy the wealth of insight and nuance to be found in Low’s book probably hinges on one’s patience for these sometimes melodramatic declarations — as well as the depth of one’s investment in staring down the ways we are complicit in the suffering of our fellow humans, one’s interest in altering the conditions that permit such suffering. The writing is consistently earnest, short on irony ... Whether or not one finds Low’s masochism to be a compelling political position, her inquiry will not fail to stimulate anyone who shares her belief that limiting our vision to that which appears \'pragmatic\' and \'politically feasible\' is a woefully inadequate response to the extremity of our moment.
