Book Club: Talk by Linda Rosenkrantz

Before there was Girls, Sex and the City or reality television, there was Linda Rosenkrantz’s racy novel Talk. Best known in Akron as the sitter for Chuck Close’s painting Linda, the real life Linda is well known for her fiction and non-fiction titles, ranging from baby name books to the history of the telegraph. Talk is a hilariously irreverent and racy testament to dialogue: the gossip, questioning, analysis, arguments, and revelations that make up our closest friendships.

It’s the summer of 1965 and Emily, Vincent, and Marsha are at the beach. All three are ambitious and artistic; all are hovering around thirty; and all are deeply and mercilessly invested in analyzing themselves and everyone around them. The friends discuss sex, shrinks, psychedelics, sculpture, and S and M in an ongoing dialogue where anything goes and no topic is off limits. Talk is the result of these conversations, recorded by Linda Rosenkrantz and transformed into a novel whose form and content put it well ahead of its time. Controversial upon its first publication in 1968, Talk remains fresh, lascivious, and laugh-out-loud funny nearly fifty years later.

Free, but registration is requested. Register online using the link below.

Talk is available for purchase in the Museum Shop.