Book Talk: “The Absent Woman: The Genius of Janet Malcolm” by Eve Sneider

Yale Library Book Talk Series Eve Sneider ‘19 will discuss her new biography of Janet Malcolm—a writer with a far-reaching impact who developed a cultlike following, even as she actively opposed literary celebrity. Karin Roffman, senior lecturer in Humanities, English and Associate Director of Public Humanities, will join Sneider in conversation. To create a portrait of this notoriously private writer and her work, Sneider immersed herself in Janet Malcolm’s archive at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, delving into the people and themes that consumed her over a 50-year career. From questions of narrative form to cultural criticism, psychoanalysis, and the role of subjectivity, Sneider explores these obsessions of Malcolm’s through manuscript drafts, controversial books, photographs, correspondence, art, and interviews with those who knew her. “The Absent Woman” grapples with the ethical questions of writing biographical profiles, which led to highly publicized trials between former Freudian psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson and Malcolm, and illustrates the many ways in which Malcolm’s essays and books were vehicles for Malcolm to understand herself. Eve Sneider ‘19 is a writer based in Brooklyn. She has written for “Wired,” where she was an editor, “New York Review of Books,” and “Lapham’s Quarterly.” She is deputy editor at Poets & Writers. After the presentation, Sneider will be available to sign books. Books will be sold at the event, but attendees are welcome to bring books purchased in advance of the event. This program is presented in partnership with the Yale Journalism Initiative, empowering Yale students to pursue careers in journalism by bridging the gap between Yale’s superlative writing instruction and the dynamic—often opaque—world of professional journalism.