"A New Yorker writer revisits the seminal book of her youth--Middlemarch-- and fashions a singular, involving story of how a passionate attachment to a great work of literature can shape our lives and help us to read our own histories."--From publisher description.

Based on George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch is set in early nineteenth century England and charts the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the town as it divides its population into two opposing factions: the conservatives and the liberals.

Newly untethered, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next. Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante are all taken down from their pedestals, their work and lives seen in a new light. Joanna wanted to learn more about the conditions these women needed...