| Live
Nude Girl
My Life as an Object
Kathleen Rooney
An art model’s take on
taking it off
“A compelling memoir that blends observation, personal
revelation and scholarly inquiry.”
—Los Angeles Times
“This esoteric, organic meditation on life as an art
object is itself a model of personal writing, perfect for
those on either side of the easel.”
—Publishers Weekly “Starred Review”
“A spirited and thought-provoking exploration of the
human figure, Live Nude Girl beckons the oft-clothed
to share the thrill of taking it off.”
—Utne Reader
“[This is] a memoir of Rooney’s career as an art
model that wrestles with the headier issues of the naked form
as inspiration, objectification for the sake of art, and the
role of a muse throughout history. . . . We’ll be watching
as Ms. Rooney seems as compelling a talent in her future off
the pedestal as on.”
—Huffington Post
“Rooney is a poet as well as a model and, for her, time
spent naked, being photographed or painted, is an opportunity
for the stillness and repose that is the starting place for
her own meditations on art and on womanhood.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“If Live Nude Girl caught your eye, promised,
beckoned—good. Follow the enticement and you’ll
encounter the thrill of a rigorous and questioning mind in
motion.”
—Lia Purpura, author of On Looking
“Kathleen Rooney boldly and bravely dissects what it
means to disrobe in the name of art—and money.”
—Rachel Kramer Bussel, editor of Best Sex Writing
2009
“The writing is enticing, engaging, inviting, and the
anecdotes are irresistible.”
—Peter Stitt, editor of The Gettysburg Review
"Mixing
art history, personal narrative, and philosophical discussions,
the book moves at a deliberate but luxurious pace."
—Aaron Kimmel, Colorado
Review
Live Nude Girl is a lively meditation on the profession
of nude modeling—that “spine-tingling combination
of power and vulnerability, submission and dominance”—as
it has been practiced in history and as it is practiced today.
Kathleen Rooney draws on her own experiences working as an
artist’s model, as well as on the stories of famous,
notorious, and mysterious artists and models through the ages.
Kathleen Rooney
is the author of Reading
with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America, now in
its second edition (University of Arkansas Press), For
You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs, and the poetry
collection,
Oneiromance (An Epithalamion).
September
6 x 9, 200 pages, index
$15.95 paper
ISBN 978-1-55728-949-0
original
cloth edition
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