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Published Apr 2021
448 pages
Genre: Essays
Publication Information
A collection of the best of the indomitable Jenny Diski's essays, "one of the great anomalies of contemporary literature" (the New York Times Magazine), selected by London Review of Books editor Mary-Kay Wilmers.
Jenny Diski was a fearless writer, for whom no subject was too difficult, even her own cancer diagnosis. Her columns in the London Review of Books--selected here by her editor and friend Mary-Kay Wilmers, on subjects as various as death, motherhood, sexual politics and the joys of solitude--have been described as "virtuoso performances," and "small masterpieces."
From Highgate Cemetery to the interior of a psychiatric hospital, from Tottenham Court Road to the icebergs of Antarctica, Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told? is a collective interrogation of the universal experience from a very particular psyche: original, opinionated--and mordantly funny.
"[E]ffortlessly readable...Diski's works are varied and surprising, and she puts a fresh spin on the personal essay with her bracing, singular prose, never veering into self-indulgence...To miss these essays would be a shame." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[T]he author's prose has a crispness and clarity of expression that have been rarely matched. Within a single sentence she can exude both a seemingly effortless elegance and a fearless iconoclasm. For writers and readers alike, this new volume is a tremendous gift. The crystalline quality to these extraordinary essays confirms Diski as one of the most talented writers of her generation." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jenny Diski was born in 1947 in London, where she lived most of her life. She was the author of ten novels, four books of travel and memoir, including Stranger on a Train and Skating to Antarctica, two volumes of essays and a collection of short stories. Her journalism appeared in publications including the Mail on Sunday, the Observer and the London Review of Books, to which she contributed more than two hundred articles over twenty-five years.
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