Love in Exile
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Publishing:6th Feb '25
£20.00
This title is due to be published on 6th February, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback - Signed Edition£20.00(9780241605981-S)
‘We ache for love, but love eludes us. Out of this crisis comes so much of what it means to be human’
Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye’s experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture.
Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled.
In Love in Exile, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.
Uncommonly wise and honest.Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish * Maggie Nelson *
Shon Faye can break your heart and change your mind in the same moment. Love In Exile is a parade of these instances, a book that for lovers in this era will be both a comfort and a sword * Torrey Peters *
I loved this smart, searching, and moving book. Love in Exile is an exacting and thoughtful exploration of what it is to relate to men, masculinity, power, and gender norms, as a woman, and as a trans woman specifically, Shon Faye's clear-sightedness and compassion, both in respect to others and to herself, is what makes her writing so powerful. Both disarming and self-possessed, this book is suffused with curiosity — and it's one that I found as thought-provoking as I found it helpful * Katherine Angel *
So beautifully written, my heart almost can’t contain it all * Poorna Bell *
A heartfelt and astute book that encourages us to reconsider our fantasies and assumptions about romantic love. Should be required reading for anyone who wants to join a dating app, love ethically, or experience true partnership with other humans * Melissa Febos *
I loved it! I think. Because after Faye's compassionate, wise and often very funny book, I'm rethinking everything I thought I knew about love. An essential read for anyone who has ever loved, lost or been lonely * Juno Dawson *
Reading this made me sit and ruminate on love, and all its squidgy forms, in ways I hadn’t before. Tenderness and honesty lurk on every page. Shon’s thoughts are at once enthralling and confronting * Jodie Harsh *
With a very sharp, brave, dialectical brilliance, Shon Faye takes on the insurmountable question of "who is supposed to love me"? This question is answered both personally and collectively in a series of essays that are gripping, self aware, and (if I may be so frank) radically seductive * Brontez Purnell *
I feel I've come out of reading this book a different person. Beautiful and funny and unsparing, Shon teaches us so much about what it really means to love, and how that emotion is marked by the world we live in * Annie Lord *
The beauty of the writing in Love In Exileverges on the scriptural. It will restore the hope of us pilgrims who have lost love, lost ourselves in love and long for a survivable future * Kuchenga Shenjé *
ISBN: 9780241605981
Dimensions: 222mm x 138mm x 28mm
Weight: 500g
208 pages