Siri Hustvedt has always been fascinated by biology and how human perception works. She is a lover of art, the humanities and the sciences. She is a novelist and a feminist. Her lively, lucid essays in A WOMAN LOOKING AT MEN LOOKING AT WOMEN begin to make some sense of those plural perspectives. There has been much talk about building a beautiful bridge across the chasm that separates the sciences and the humanities. At the moment, we have only a wobbly walkway, but Hustvedt is encouraged by the travelers making their way across it in both directions.

After years of watching her work ignored or dismissed by critics, artist Harriet Burden conducts an experiment she calls Maskings: she presents her own art behind three male masks, concealing her female identity. When Burden finally steps forward triumphantly to reveal herself as the artist behind the exhibitions, there are critics who doubt her. The public scandal turns on the final exhibition, initially shown as the work of acclaimed artist Rune, who denies Burden’s role in its creation.

LIVING, THINKING, LOOKING brings together 32 essays written between 2006 and 2011, in which Siri Hustvedt culls insights from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and literature. The book is divided into three sections: the essays in Living draw directly from Hustvedt’s life; those in Thinking explore memory, emotion and the imagination; and the pieces in Looking are about visual art.