These candid, daring, engaging, and decidedly literate writings address the dual question of how we find privacy in this day and age and how we lose it. Comtemporary writers from a wide array from backgrounds—among them Dorothy Allison, Jonathan Franzen, F. Gonzalez-Crussi, Wayne Koestenbaum, Yusek Komunyakaa, Wendy Lesser, Kathleen Norris, and Robin West—tackle the issue of privacy on many levels, including the global, communal, and very personal.
Specific essay topics include the implications of surveillance technology; teen web sites and the lives of the girls who create them; the culture of sexual relations in today's prisons; "Privacy in the Films of Lana Turner;" and the polarity of warm, sometimes claustrophobic, Latin communities versus their cold, sometimes isolated, North American counterparts.
"Ambitious . . . [An] impressive roster [of contributors] . . . Contains challenging ideas and questions for those who want to pursue the topic in depth."—Publishers Weekly
"The Private I makes a useful, provocative, and lasting connection between literature and modern life."—Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A worthy troupe of articulate contributors provocatively illuminate diverse aspects of our contradictory feelings about protecting and voilating privacy."—Booklist
