A YEAR OF READING PROUST is literary criticism, love story, travel essay, biography, personal history, mid-life accounting, mother-daughter story, and essay on the literary life all in one. Starting with a brilliant description of what it feels like to read Proust, Rose moves to an account of her daily life, written with panache, and loving intelligence, which the reading of Proust inspired. Set largely in New York City and Key West, Florida, it gives dazzling glimpses of the lifestyles of the talented and famous. A completely orginal book, an exhilarating literary experience, it invites comparison with autobiographical classics like THE LOVEABLE FEAST and THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS and will do for a generation of American writers what those books did for an earlier generation.