Debra Curtis – författare

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. In this provocative ethnography, Debra Curtis examines their sexuality in gripping detail: why do Nevisian girls engage in sexual activity at such young ages? Where is the line between coercion and consent? How does a desire for wealth affect a girl's sexual practices? Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality's contradictions are exposed: power and powerless¡ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure. Pleasures and Perils illuminates the methodological and ethical issues anthropologists face when they conduct research on sex, especially among girls. The sexually explicit narratives conveyed in this book challenge not only the reader's own thoughts on sexuality but also the broader limits and possibilities of ethnography.

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. In this provocative ethnography, Debra Curtis examines their sexuality in gripping detail: why do Nevisian girls engage in sexual activity at such young ages? Where is the line between coercion and consent? How does a desire for wealth affect a girl's sexual practices? Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality's contradictions are exposed: power and powerless¡ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure. Pleasures and Perils illuminates the methodological and ethical issues anthropologists face when they conduct research on sex, especially among girls. The sexually explicit narratives conveyed in this book challenge not only the reader's own thoughts on sexuality but also the broader limits and possibilities of ethnography.

'Those looking for the next Lessons in Chemistry - a story of ferociously bright, feisty women holding their own in a man’s world - may have found it ... this is a rich read, heartbreaking, engrossing and intellectually stimulating' New Zealand Listener‘Sweeping and intimate … a gorgeous meditation on roads not taken’ SHELBY VAN PELT, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures‘A magnificent, spellbinding love story’ CLARE LESLIE HALL, author of Broken Country_____1976, Rhode Island. Lily Webb has spent years trying to build a steady, predictable life, far from her hometown marred by tragedy and the sister she cannot seem to save from herself.Jane was always the brilliant one: fierce, complicated and drawn to the mysteries of the universe. But after their mother’s death, Jane’s gifts became entangled with addiction, pulling the sisters into a cycle of love, guilt and heartbreak that neither could escape.Lily has found comfort in a quiet marriage to a devoted scientist, one who opened her eyes to the beauty of the natural world and offered her safety and stability. But when her first love, a boy she lost under devastating circumstances, returns, Lily is forced to confront the past she thought she had buried.As old wounds reopen, and her fragile bond with Jane grows ever more tenuous, Lily must navigate the tension between the life she’s built and the life she once imagined for herself.A decades-spanning tale rich with questions of faith, science and the ties that hold us together, Laws of Love and Logic is a compelling, emotionally gripping novel about sisterhood, forgiveness and the complicated nature of love.

'Those looking for the next Lessons in Chemistry - a story of ferociously bright, feisty women holding their own in a man’s world - may have found it ... this is a rich read, heartbreaking, engrossing and intellectually stimulating' New Zealand Listener‘Sweeping and intimate … a gorgeous meditation on roads not taken’ SHELBY VAN PELT, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures‘A magnificent, spellbinding love story’ CLARE LESLIE HALL, author of Broken Country_____1976, Rhode Island. Lily Webb has spent years trying to build a steady, predictable life, far from her hometown marred by tragedy and the sister she cannot seem to save from herself.Jane was always the brilliant one: fierce, complicated and drawn to the mysteries of the universe. But after their mother’s death, Jane’s gifts became entangled with addiction, pulling the sisters into a cycle of love, guilt and heartbreak that neither could escape.Lily has found comfort in a quiet marriage to a devoted scientist, one who opened her eyes to the beauty of the natural world and offered her safety and stability. But when her first love, a boy she lost under devastating circumstances, returns, Lily is forced to confront the past she thought she had buried.As old wounds reopen, and her fragile bond with Jane grows ever more tenuous, Lily must navigate the tension between the life she’s built and the life she once imagined for herself.A decades-spanning tale rich with questions of faith, science and the ties that hold us together, Laws of Love and Logic is a compelling, emotionally gripping novel about sisterhood, forgiveness and the complicated nature of love.