The Princess of 72nd Street

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Description

Ellen is a single artist living alone on New York’s Upper West Side in the 1970s. She is beset by old boyfriends, paint pigment choices, and, occasionally, by ‘radiances’ – episodes of joyous, reckless unreality. Under the influence of ‘radiances’ she becomes Princess Esmeralda, and West 72nd Street becomes the kingdom over which she rules. Life as Esmeralda is a liberating experience for Ellen, who, despite the chaos and stigma these episodes can bring, relishes the respite from the confines of the everyday. And yet those around her, particularly the men in her life, are threatened by her incarnation as Esmeralda, and by the freedom that it gives her.The Princess of 72nd Street is Elaine Kraf’s witty, dizzyingly inventive take on female liberation and mental health, a work of immense literary power and unbridled energy. Provocative at the time of its publication in 1979 and thoroughly iconoclastic, it is a remarkable portrait of an unforgettable woman.

Additional information

Weight 0.123 kg
Dimensions 1 × 12.8 × 19.7 cm
by

Format

Paperback

Language

Pages

160

Publisher

Year Published

2025-1-2

Imprint

Publication City/Country

London, United Kingdom

ISBN 10

024171527X

About The Author

Elaine Kraf (1936—2013) was a writer and painter. She was the author of four published works of fiction: I Am Clarence (1969), The House of Madelaine (1971), Find Him! (1977) and The Princess of 72nd Street (1979)—as well as several unpublished novels, plays and poetry collections. She was the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts awards, a 1971 fellowship at the Broad Loaf Writers’ Conference and a 1977 residency at Yaddo. She was born and lived in New York City.

A raggedy genius is finally queened, bringing a fairy-tale ending to this cracked dark story of the old West Side

Other text

If one were to imagine a perfect specimen of a ‘forgotten classic’ by a woman writer from the 1960s and ’70s, you might come up with The Princess of 72nd Street… it’s a slender, accomplished and frequently funny work told from the perspective of a lively and bruised female consciousness….Its first-person narration feels essayistic, full of bold declarations about heterosexual love, gender roles and aesthetics

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