Description: Simone de Beauvoir's gripping classic of a woman striving for perfection
Laurence lives what appears to be an ideal existence. Her life features the trappings of 1960s Parisian bourgeoisie: money, a handsome husband, two daughters, and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though she can't stop thinking about work while she's at home and she dreams of domesticity while at the office. But Laurence gave up on happiness long ago, choosing instead to manifest the perfect image of wife, mother, daughter, homemaker, and career woman. It is only when she is relentlessly torn by the competing needs of her family and jarred into recognition of her own predicament by the despair of her ten-year-old daughter, Catherine, that Laurence begins to resist the hand she has been dealt. The Image of Her, the 1966 final novel by Simone de Beauvoir, freshly translated here by Lauren Elkin, is rooted in the feminist revolutions of its era, yet it remains a strikingly relevant confrontation with the limits that society places on women and their power.Review Quotes: "This timeless and surprisingly jocular novel has the same richness of feeling and continental sophistication as Annie Ernaux's auto-fiction, plus a dash of the wealthy carelessness found in F. Scott Fitzgerald's best known works. . . . It's the best book I've read so far this year."--Ceci Browning, Times (UK)
"Though [The Image of Her] is sixty years old, the issues it addresses--about happiness, autonomy, mothers, daughters, the reasons for existence--feel utterly topical. . . . A deceptively slim volume, at once domestic and philosophical."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Vividly evokes the changing landscape and social fabric of the 1960s. . . . In [Beauvoir's] protagonist's vulnerability and contradictions it is tempting to identify a less guarded image of the author than the more carefully curated autobiographical writings ever allow."--Henriette Korthals Altes, Times Literary Supplement "The Image of Her is engagingly presented--and there's more to it than there seems at first sight."--M. A. Orthofer, Complete Review "Probes at the many strands of a woman's life with exquisite precision. Timeless and affecting."--Marlowe Granados, author of Happy Hour "The Image of Her seems to be about appearances, but it's really an ingeniously constructed and stylish study of voices--a novel of conversations in which a woman at last finds a way to speak her unhappiness out loud. Beauvoir the novelist has as much to teach us as Beauvoir the philosopher."--Christine Smallwood, author of The Life of the Mind "A lethally moving portrait of female alienation and resistance."--Adam Thirlwell, author of The Future Future