Siri Hustvedt - The Shaking Woman

The New York Times“An elegantly-written book...” Hustvedt makes a stout case that brain disorders must be viewed not just as scientific phenomena but as human narratives. But she glosses over the situations of the parents, spouses and siblings whose lives are equally transformed...

The Independent“A short book with an encyclopaedic breadth...” An invigorating antidote to the emotional squelchiness which too often inhabits misery memoirs and illness narratives. Hustvedt is a calm traveller on the storm-tossed seas of the self...

Financial Times“Part case study, part detective story...” A reasonably diverting stroll through contemporary and historical arguments about what a human being is (as opposed to a study of the particular human being at the centre of the story)...

The Telegraph“Hustved reveals surprisingly little about herself...” With its intellectual rigour and detached tone, The Shaking Woman manages to avoid the kind of warm-bath emotional territory which so often besets the genre and so long as one doesn’t really care why Hustvedt shakes...

The Times“Hustvedt shuts the reader out... ” Despite the promising setup, it is all ultimately unsatisfying. Readers who want to understand the workings of the brain will be ­better served by a scientist such as Steven Pinker. But if you want a good memoir, this isn’t really it, either...

Guardian“Hustvedt, china complexion or not, is tough...” She combines the neediness of the patient – please, let me be cured! – with the scepticism of a judge. She is, by trade, a storyteller but she knows that narratives, of the kind that Freud so seductively conjured, can mislead...

Economist“Not yet reviewed”

Publishers Weekly“Not yet reviewed”

The New Yorker“Not yet reviewed”

The Scotsman“Not yet reviewed”