At once a subversive autobiography of a mercurial woman and a mesmerizing history of the body as a site of resistance to power.

“I bite my friends to heal them.”—Diogenes the Cynic, c. 350 BCE

From a Roman amphitheater where 4th century martyrs are fed to wild beasts to the S&M leather bars of New York in the 1970s, this sinuous and illuminating book by novelist and cultural critic Fernanda Eberstadt explore the lives of uncommonly brave men and women—saints, philosophers, artists--who have used their own wounded or stigmatized bodies to challenge society’s mores and entrenched power structures.

The Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes who lived “a dog’s life,” sleeping, teaching, having sex in the public square; Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, two early Christian martyrs; twentieth-century prophets of bodily freedom like filmmaker-poet Pier Paolo Pasolini and philosopher Michel Foucault; Russian punk feminist group Pussy Riot; the political artist Piotr Pavlensky, who nailed his scrotum to the pavement of Red Square to protest Vladimir Putin’s tyranny; these are the outrageous, uncommon, but deeply committed activists featured through original interviews and careful case studies in Eberstadt’s immensely readable book, which is part political treatise, part manifesto, part memoir.

Running through her narrative of the Body Militant is Eberstadt’s own story and the story of her mother, a New York writer and glamor figure of the 1960s, whose illness-scarred body first led Eberstadt to seek connections between beauty, belief, and the truths taught through the body.

Eberstadt asks crucial questions for our time: what drives certain individuals to risk pain, disgrace, even death, in the name of freedom? And, what can we learn from their example to become braver ourselves?

TARGET CONSUMER
- For readers of Just Kids by Patti Smith, Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz, I Love Dick by Chris Kraus, and fans of the writing of Jaenette Winterson, Merritt Tierce, Olivia Laing, Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, and Eve Babitz
- For readers interested in the role of art in society, changing attitudes towards the body throughout history
- Readers who enjoy books that connect personal experience and memory to larger social, political, and artistic themes

KEY SELLING POINTS
- Soliciting endorsements from: Olivia Laing, Zadie Smith, Lauren Elkin, Maggie Nelson, Rebecca Solnit, Chris Kraus
- An absorbing combination of autobiography and critical reflection on the body as a vehicle of artistic expression, a catalyst for self-expression, and a tool of political and social protest and resilience
- Based on years of research as well as the author’s experience of growing up in 1970s New York and interaction with artists such as Peter Hujar, David Wojnarowicz, Stephen Varble