

“I am depraved,” announces her narrator, Joan, with a mixture of pride and shame. Her first novel, Animal, explores the same territory.

In each of her three case studies lurked the shadow of past or present abuse female desire, the book seemed to conclude, is inseparable from what has been done to us by men. L isa Taddeo’s bestselling debut, Three Women, made headlines as much for its process as its theme Taddeo spent eight years moving around the US, immersing herself in her subjects in pursuit of an intimate portrait of the sex lives of (straight, white) American women.
