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Creativity and the Eccentric Mind
by Rosa Montero
A dazzling journey into the eccentric, troubled, and luminous minds that shaped literature.
In this bold and deeply researched blend of memoir, essay, literary analysis, and intellectual sleuth story, Montero draws on psychology, neuroscience, and literature, as well as the lives of writers and artists, to explore the connection between creativity and mental vulnerability.
With narrative élan, Montero brings to life figures such as Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, Joseph Conrad, and Doris Lessing, and paints a fresco of the ways in which the brain works, its quirks and dark corners. Breaking down the forces that influence creativity, Montero proposes new ways of thinking about both the creative act, and what we consider "normal."
Part intimate memoir, part cultural history, The Danger to Be Sane is a moving and inspirational homage to minds and lives that sit outside of the mean.
"In this unique exploration, Spanish journalist and novelist Montero unpacks the relationship between creativity and madness... Montero's theories are consistently intriguing, as is the suspenseful narrative she unfolds... This is rigorous and thrilling." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Journalist Montero delivers an insightful study of the link between creative genius and mental instability... The author discusses how creators use art as an essential evolutionary mechanism for survival and a means to relate to an often-chaotic world. Skillfully translated by Ford, the prose is candid and meticulously researched... This unique and compelling blend of memoir, psychology, and criticism offers profound insights into the artistic temperament." —Library Journal
"The Danger to Be Sane is an ebullient examination of madness, mortality, suicide. Searching the extremely well-documented lives of famous—and famously crazy—writers, Montero finds that 'deviance' is often just a more truthful account of normal human behavior. She deals seriously with the most serious subjects in the most open, accessible way." —Chris Kraus, author of The Four Spent the Day Together and I Love Dick
This information about The Danger to Be Sane was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rosa Montero is a Spanish writer. A longtime journalist for El País, she is also the author of more than twenty novels and essay collections, many translated into multiple languages. The Danger to Be Sane is her English-language nonfiction debut.
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