The Importance of Being Iceland

Praise

Eloquent, touching, and often hilarious essays on art, poetry, politics, and ‘Eileen’—a comic character who deserves to be as well known as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.—Terry Castle, Bookforum—

The Importance of Being Iceland brings Myles full circle: She is able to portray evolving LGBT culture and her place in it, while simultaneously enabling the larger world to view us with humor, irony and admiration.

Myles is a brilliant stylist; she writes in a way that we wish we could talk. Which is why it’s so exciting to finally have a great big slab of essays, to observe her language when she’s not constrained by the rules of poetry or fiction. We get to hear what she says when she’s being herself.

Myles’s unique writings on art and culture manage to stay right on target while simultaneously misbehaving.

There’s a perfect analogy for the experience of reading Eileen Myles’s new book of essays, The Importance of Being Iceland: it’s like being at a large and lively dinner party with several of your favorite friends. The food is good, the room is comfortable, and the conversation is witty, feisty, perceptive, even tender. There are moments of digression, moments when the conversation becomes a little choppy, and there’s also the fact that all of your dinner companions are variants of Eileen Myles. The overall effect of this book is to leave the reader with a full belly and a refreshed sensibility.

These writings confidently wander and always cohere, held together not just by the author’s singular intelligence but by her ability to exude personality on the page.