The Misfit of the Family: Balzac and the Social Forms of Sexuality (Series Q)
&ldquo;Michael Lucey&rsquo;s Balzac is not the Balzac they taught you in college, or even in graduate school. His resourceful readings introduce us to a social universe to which oddballs and misfits are entirely germane because queerness is its norm. Now I understand why Proust so loved Balzac and what Baudelaire learned from him: that the bizarreness of beauty offers a clue to the form of heroism that is truly characteristic of the modern age.&rdquo;&mdash;Ross Chambers, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan