A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy
In her first novel, singer-songwriter and music journalist Greig examines the case of second-year philosophy student Susanna, who frequently wakes up, screaming, from disconcerting dreams. It's not so much the demands of her course load at the University of Sussex—Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Freud and friends—as it is Susanna's own experience with Nietzsche's great separation, or the sudden realization that everything... means nothing to you. Her boyfriend, Jason, an antiques dealer 10 years her senior, is stingy with affection. Which helps explain why Susanna falls for Rob, a brooding yet innocent-seeming classmate who frequents the dingy campus bars, digs a good protest and lives in dilapidated communal housing. Torn, Susanna opts to date both—it's the swinging '70s, after all—but the back-and-forth leaves her dizzy, and when she discovers she's pregnant and realizes the father could be either man, neither her tutor nor her girlfriends can assuage her. Fumbling through the smoky corridors and lofty ideals of academia, Susanna is, like so many student philosophers, equal parts endearing and insufferable, and even if her dilemma isn't the most original, Greig makes it uniquely hers.(May)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.