Josephine Gattuso Hendin is Professor of English and Tiro A.Segno Professor of Italian American Studies at New York University. She is a former Guggenheim Fellow and a notable critic, and her books including Bulnerable People, which was named an ALA notable book of the year. Her novel, The Right Thing to Do, won an American Book Award.

"Timely and accessible...this is important study will appeal to a broad readership and should be read in women's studies classrooms."--National Women's Studies Association Journal

"...a disturbing and psychologically acute study of the relations between women and biolence in contemporary life and imaginative literature. It is one of those rare critical books that sustain being reread. Hendin, a gifted and deeply informed sensibility, renders our ongoing erotic realities with novelistic skill and a prophetic awareness of worst intensities to come."--Harold Bloom

"The expressions of violence Hendin captures here redefine women in ways that break with both traditional and progressive expections. The effect is nearly the same as reading a very edge novel; you want to do it with lights on and the doors locked."--Library Journal