A provocative and wide-ranging conversation between two distinctive women—one American and one French—on the dilemmas, rewards, and demands of womanhood.
In most forms of entertainment, friendships—and conversations—between women are all too often portrayed as backstabbing, competitive, or simply perfunctory...About Women: Conversations Between a Writer and a Painter is an antidote, if an imperfect one, to this cultural weakness.
At its best, About Women gives you a feeling of access to the shared salon of two brilliant women. But sometimes Gilot overwhelms Alther, and it begins to read like an interview in which a deferential interviewer struggles to focus her talkative subject.
In less thoughtful hands, this experiment might be boring or feel sanctimonious: After all, 256 pages of uninterrupted sociological discourse is not the easiest sell. But while some sections do lag, the friends of 25 years have a provocative way of digging into whatever they’re discussing that keeps things generally interesting.
