Blindfold, The

Iris Vegan, a graduate student living alone and impoverished in New York, encounters four strong characters who fascinate and in different ways subordinate her: an inscrutable urban recluse who employs her to record the possessions of a murdered woman; a photographer whose eerie portrait of Iris takes on a life of its own; an old woman in hospital who tries to claim a remnant of the ailing Iris; and a professor she has an affair with. An exploration of female identity in an age when the old definitions -- as some man's daughter/wife/mother -- no longer apply, fuelled with eroticism and a sense of menace. Review: 'Gripping...A complex exploration of the nature of the self, executed in polished and immediate prose' -- The Times 'It has vivid and compelling characters; it is scary, sinister and readable ... a very smart novel' -- Independent 'Brilliant...A dark, mesmerising debut' -- Independent on Sunday 'Hustvedt has pulled off nothing less than a re-mapping of the modern feminist psyche...The quality and spareness of her prose, the intensity of her imagination, are at work on one of the most macabre terrains of the 20th century -- New York' -- Daily Telegraph 'A harsh, dark, dangerous piece of prose...Sharply readable, quirky and entertaining in its witty observation of student and city life, but the whole resonates with shocking force' -- Vogue 'A work of dizzying intensity ... an intriguing and sure-handed debut by a writer of eloquent and vivid disposition' -- Don DeLillo 'Sexy without being steamy, intelligent without being complicated' -- New Statesman Author Biography: Siri Hustvedt's first novel, THE BLINDFOLD, was published by Sceptre in 1993 and her second, THE ENCHANTMENT OF LILY DAHL, followed in 1997. Her third novel, WHAT I LOVED, was published in 2003 to great acclaim and was an international bestseller. It was followed in 2009 by THE SORROWS OF AN AMERICAN. She is also the author of Reading to You, a poetry collection, and three collections of essays, Yonder, Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting, and A PLEA FOR EROS. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband Paul Auster.