Despite being a lauded writer and critic, despite being the winner of a Pulitzer Prize even, Margo Jefferson innovates and takes risks like a writer with nothing to lose. Her new book, Constructing a Nervous System is both the history of a mind’s formation and the deconstruction of a culture and its tropes, as well as what feels like a form of self-analysis taking place on the page, beneath the readers eyes, in real time. It’s a book about race and gender, but also of family and culture, where all four intersect, and how one person used the limitations society sought to place on her as a ladder to climb free of them. Buy Constructing a Nervous System here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781783789009/constructing-a-nervous-system-a-memoirThe winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Margo Jefferson was for years a theater and book critic for Newsweek and The New York Times. Her writing has appeared in, among other publications, Vogue, New York magazine, and The New Republic. She is the author of On Michael Jackson and is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts.*SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODESLooking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulyssesIf you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandcoSubscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=enAll money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.*Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1Shak Get bonus content on Patreon Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.