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From the jacket:
In her first novel, The Mind-Body Problem, Rebecca Goldstein bridged the gap between the comedy of manners and the novel of ideas with a deftness that suggested an American Iris Murdoch. In The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind, Goldstein accomplishes and even more impressive feat of architecture, interlacing high romance with an elegant meditation on the conflicting claims of reason and desire.
When the ethereal Eva Mueller, a professor of Plato and Spinoza at a small college, undertakes the philosophical education of Michael Fields, who is handsome, clever, and only twenty, she suddenly finds herself into an emotional whirlpool—and in the process discovers the terrifying extremes that unbridled passion and inhuman intellect have led her to in her past.
“[The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind is] a delicate balancing act: a delightful fiction that engages the meditative mind.”
—Newsday
“Clever, observant, and nimble... One has the exhilarating sense of reading a writer who has just discovered the full possibilities of her talent.”
—The New York Times
“Beautifully written... never anything less than remarkably skillful... often very funny. A daring, ambitious book.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Fascinating and absorbing, as haunted as it is haunting... An ambitious exploration of sexual and literary politics.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle
“One of the most satisfying books of the year... one of the most electrifyingly erotic books of the year.”
—San Diego Tribune
