• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Mar 05, 2024 By Frank Valish

Fernanda Eberstadt is a New York-born writer who grew up in the heart of the city, surrounded by artists and writers, her parents being a fashion photographer and writer, respectively, and her grandfather being the famous poet Ogden Nash. She saw great freedom from a young age in NYC, and as such mingled and associated with counter-cultural artists who bent societal norms to their breaking points, such as the infamous Stephen Varble.

Bite Your Friends finds Eberstadt examining both her own story and the stories of cultural provocateurs, martyrs, and radical thinkers such as Varble, who have used their bodies as agents of anarchy, protest, and change. She intertwines her own story among analyses of those of Christian martyrs Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, filmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, thinker Michel Foucault, artist Piotr Pavlensky, punk protesters Pussy Riot, and Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes, from whom the title of the book is taken.

The text weaves in and out of these stories and Eberstadt’s own seamlessly and in doing so creates something of an alternative memoir/studious examination of both self and other, accentuating within it how the body can be utilized in protest. It’s a fascinating romp through eras and across individuals, providing more than a little insight as well as any number of places to branch out for further study. (www.fernandaeberstadt.com) (www.europaeditions.com)

Author rating: 7.5/10