Here is an American mind contemplating contemporary society and culture
with wit, imagination, and a brave intelligence. Tillman upends
expectations, shifts tone, introduces characters, breaches limits of
genre and category, reconfiguring the world with the turn of a sentence.
Like other unique thinkers, Tillman sees the world differently--she is
not a malcontent, but she is discontented. Her responses to art and
literature, to social and political questions change the reader's mind,
startling it with new angles. Which is why so many of us who know her
work often wonder: what would Lynne Tillman do? A long-time resident of
New York, Tillman's sharp humor is like her city's, tough and hilarious.
There are distinct streams of concern coursing through the seeming
eclecticism of topics--Hillary Clinton, Jane Bowles, O.J. Simpson, art
and artists, Harry Mathews, the state of fiction, film, the state of her
mind, the State of the Nation. There is a great variety, but what
remains consistent is how differently she writes about them, how well
she understands, how passionate and bold her writing is.
What does Lynne Tillman do? Everything. Anything. You name it. She has a
conversation with you, and you're a better, smarter person for it.
