Drawing Us In

With Contributions by Dorothy Allison, John Berger, Mark Doty, Mary Gordon, bell hooks, Alfred Kazin, August Wilson, and others

For the contributors to Drawing Us In, visual art makes us see what we haven't seen before; it surprises, transforms, and comforts us. Dorothy Allison explains how a painting in a Baptist church taught her as a child that art connects people from disparate backgrounds. Alfred Kazin reflects on his wanderings around New York's museums as a teenager. Mary Gordon finds that Bonnard's still lifes put in perspective her mother's struggle with illness and aging.

For anyone who has felt moved by the visual, this collection offers a delightful range of views on how and why art matters in our psychic, social, and political lives.A hearty rejuvenation of the experience of visual art in our lives. -DoubleTake

"What matters is this: that, despite being dissected and loved, the particular artwork under review retains its mystery while further deepening the mystery we call the collective experience of living." -Hilton Als, from the Foreword

"A delight to read. . . . It is the kind of book that lingers with the reader because the essayists are so easy to identify with and because they summarize timeless art-related concerns. As has been said of many films, 'I laughed, I cried.'" -Susan Olcott, Library JournalHilton Als is a well-known theater critic, a 2016 Pulitzer Prize recipient, and theater critic for The New Yorker magazine. In 2000, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and has since written for several publications including The Village Voice, Vibe, and New York Review of Books. His published works include The Women and White Girls. Als is an associate professor of writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and he lives in New York City.