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Brutalities: A Love Story Paperback – October 3, 2023

by Margo Steines (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 69 ratings
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"Brutalities is electric with insight, riveted by its commitments―to love and bewilderment, to bearing witness―and utterly propulsive." ―Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

A searing, vivid memoir that investigates the dynamics of violence, power, desire, and a body pushed to the brink.

Quarantined in a southwestern desert city in the midst of her high-risk pregnancy, Margo Steines felt her life narrow around her growing body, compelling her to reckon with the violence entangled in its history. She was a professional dominatrix in New York City, a homestead farmer in a brutal relationship, a welder on a high-rise building crew, and a mixed martial arts enthusiast; each of her many lives brought a new perspective on how power and masculinity coalesce―and how far she could push her body toward the brink. With unflinching candor, Steines searches for the roots of her erstwhile attraction to pain while charting the complicated triumph of gentleness and love.

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  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    October 3, 2023
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    132405087X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1324050872
  8. See all details
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From the Publisher

Electric with Insight--Leslie Jamison

brutalities

BRUTALITIES is a perfect book--Melissa Febos

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Steines manages to keep her reader close, writing with a rare crystalline precision as she explores her fixation with violence and with certain forms of traditional masculinity... What elevates Steines’s book above the difficult, often extreme experiences she shares is her willingness to look honestly and objectively at her desires."
― Casey Schwartz, New York Times Book Review

"There are many profound takeaways from this memoir... It's one hell of a read, and well worth every page."
― Robyn Smith, Bust

"From being a dominatrix to a welder, Steines meticulously describes the emotional toll of these jobs, deftly leading readers through several different stages of her life and how they all have informed her relationship with her body. Ultimately, those who pick up the book will be prompted to contemplate their body in a way they may never have thought of before."
― Katie Tamola, Shondaland

"Unforgettable... Brutalities is alive with candor and care in its attention toward the body and the pressures the world places upon it."
― Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

"Steines tackles complex, nuanced truths about power and violence through clear writing and an unflinching gaze... [A] propulsive debut... The author’s skillful prose expresses pain clearly...but this discomfort is tempered by her clearheaded insights and retroactive self-empathy."
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Brutalities is electric with insight, riveted by its commitments―to love and bewilderment, to bearing witness―and utterly propulsive in its explorations of compulsion, tenderness, caregiving, and desire. Margo Steines sees the world fiercely and freshly, with a rapt and nuanced gaze utterly her own. Imagine journeying to the center of the earth, except the earth is a human body―full of wanting and haunting―and the journey is just harrowing and glorious enough to do justice to the work and wonder of being alive."
― Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams and Make It Scream, Make It Burn

"Brutalities is a perfect book. Reading it felt like consuming something designed precisely for me and of course, I won't be alone in this―that is the genius of great works of art: they reach our deepest interiors by naming the unspoken ordinary, the things we fear seeing or being seen as. There is nothing ordinary about this book, however. It is a brainy, elegant, erotic, brutal, funny, hypnotic achievement by an author obsessed with the far reaches of what it means to live in a body, and how some kinds of love look like violence while others can be medicine. It has made a devotee of me; I'll read anything Margo Steines ever writes."
― Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood and Body Work

"This book circles around the simple fact that each of us is capable of change. It does not matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done or what’s been done to us, change is always possible. Margo Steines, through what some might call grace, has emerged from a (perhaps) chosen darkness, to focus all her wild energies into these pages. To get here she had to descend into realms you might find disturbing, but trust that if you descend with her (the trip is exhilarating) you too will emerge, also changed. This book is an amazing feat, Steines has crafted something truly lovely, and it’s her writing that makes it sing."
― Nick Flynn, author of This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire

"Margo Steines is a radical writer and also a slyly hilarious one. She goes places most of us dare not go and comes back with surprising truths that tell us as much about us as they do about her. This is the trick of great self-writing, to understand just how capacious the self can be and how porous with the wildnesses of the world. Steines's writing is alive, weird, dark, and electric."
― Ander Monson, author of Predator: A Memoir, a Movie, an Obsession

"Wide-ranging… This unsparing and open tour of [Steines’s] many compulsions and incarnations―sex worker, farmer, welder―contrasts sharply with the author’s more recent experience of being pregnant during the pandemic lockdown."
― Booklist

About the Author

Margo Steines holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Arizona, where she teaches writing. Her work has appeared in the New York Times (Modern Love), the Sun, and elsewhere. A native New Yorker, she lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (October 3, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 132405087X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324050872
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 69 ratings

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Margo Steines

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4.5 out of 5 stars
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69 global ratings
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Top reviews from the United States

Christie Tate
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent read
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2024
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This is a fascinating story about what a body can endure. And the slow climb to care and wonder and gentleness. Beautifully written.
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andrea bertoli
5.0 out of 5 stars wild and beautiful
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2023
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Just like the author herself, this whole book is wild and beautiful. Steines is able to hold the tragic, the loving, the confusing, and the miraculous and still maintain a gorgeous narrative thread and impeccable writing. I was in tears, and in love, during the whole book. One of the through-lines that I personally love so much is that even in the midst of real, dark brutalities of our lives, there is also so much beauty.
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Ricardo Small
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding wordsmithing!
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2023
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From the first page to the last there is excellent writing from a professor of writing with entertaining phraseology that is some of THE best I've ever read. Margo Steines' students at the University of Arizona are fortunate. Not only that, her accomplishments during her life are instructive. They show how a strong woman achieved excellence in her life. I was amazed at how many of Ms Steines experiences paralleled mine and members of my family. I am looking forward to listening to her presentation during the Tucson Festival of Books in March of 2024. Do yourself a favor and read this book.
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Jessica Fiorillo
5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally raw
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2023
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An utterly compelling read. The structure might not make sense for all readers (in some ways, it reads more like a collection of essays than a chronological memoir) but it felt important to see the violence titrated between the softer chapters that focused on pregnancy/motherhood. What struck me most, aside from the stunning writing, was the author’s willingness to leave it all on the page. This isn’t a story for the faint of heart, but what you’re left with is a window into the redemptive qualities of pain, and a recognition that even redemption can be its own type of muzzle.
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Tricia Alberini
5.0 out of 5 stars "Brutally" honest. Beautifully written.
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2023
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A mesmerizing tale into a life that was difficult in a way far outside of the norm. Steines' writing is brilliant and breathtaking, as is her story. An amazing introspective look at why we seek pain and punishment and how love can heal the heart and the body. Congratulations, Margo. This is a true 10/10.
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Lyndsey
3.0 out of 5 stars Hard to follow
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2023
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She's a very very good writer with a very descriptive backstory that is meant to weave different timeframes together, but the constant shifting makes it hard to follow and I never fully felt like I understood her, and I really wanted to. There's both a lot said, but also a lot missing. It fell flat.
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Sue
5.0 out of 5 stars A book you'll want to reread one million times and share with everyone you know.
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2023
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I'd read anything by Margo--the depth of honesty and heart in her voice is rare, if not impossible, to find. These are gorgeous and incisive essays, each one smart and special and totally surprising. 100% recommend.
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Claire Z Steines
5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful and Compelling Read
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2023
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Claire Z Steines
5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful and Compelling Read
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2023
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