Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery

Kindle
$15.95

Available instantly

Paperback
$17.95

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery August 22 - September 1 on orders shipped by Amazon over $25

Or fastest delivery August 20 - 31

Select delivery location

Usually ships within 2 to 3 days

$$17.95 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Payment

Secure transaction

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Details

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.

Read full return policy

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

FREE delivery August 22 - 28. Details

Or fastest delivery August 16 - 18. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$10.20
+ $4.82 shipping

Sold by: booksandbling

Added

Not added

$17.22
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: CINCY BOOKS

Added

Not added

$14.86
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: allnewbooks

Flip to back Flip to front

See all 2 images

Follow the Author

Sarah Schulman

Empathy (Little Sister's Classics) Paperback – May 1, 2006

by Sarah Schulman (Author), Kevin Killian (Introduction)

4.2 8 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$17.95","priceAmount":17.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"17","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"UnlY6cN9v4sA6OUlpHuehJouZ1eXHAxF8EoguwLTvO%2BKNuy4c3V4ojMCPph1fH2VnbAxe2nK0%2FKK1RFPk%2B7BKWBGWdD%2FaxOrWNtO5GmGF5ysJyadr34BeB3GyfUdkYWkZCV8Te2QOhc%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$6.70","priceAmount":6.70,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"6","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"70","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"UnlY6cN9v4sA6OUlpHuehJouZ1eXHAxFX2%2F3xotHXOE9pV2nJIxOdTrjHwFzAWV5AQ6ykTRXfrl1tD7Ffkz6IVk5DKrrV1FgYTPvsMScf%2BSUrlLttlUzutlHpkR%2BlsASw4qkDkrF%2BXd7lFqJlZad489JnphvM9BPb%2Bx2%2FwNYH8PEluOmPY%2BJJUlwpsFCnjkb","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Provocative, observant, and daring, this 1992 novel by one of America’s preeminent lesbian writers and thinkers is being reissued for the Little Sister’s Classics series. Anna O. is a loner in New York, an office temp obsessed with a mysterious woman in white leather; Doc is a post-Freudian psychiatrist who hands out business cards to likely neurotics on street corners, and is himself looking for personal fulfillment. They befriend each other in the netherworld of the Lower East Side, two unlikely people drawn together by their confusion about and empathy for the world around them, and each other. This beautifully written novel is about the fluidity of desire, and how those of us damaged by love can still be transformed by it. Features a new essay by the author and an introduction by Kevin Killian.

Print length

225 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Arsenal Pulp Press
Publication date

May 1, 2006
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1551522012
ISBN-13

978-1551522012
See all details

Sarah Schulman
41
Paperback
9 offers from $11.57
Sarah Schulman
6
Paperback
20 offers from $3.18

Editorial Reviews

Review

With "Empathy", the lesbian novel comes of age.?Fay Weldon--Fay Weldon "Fay Weldon "

From the Publisher

A Little Sister's Classic: the subtly transgressive novel about identity, sexual politics, and self-esteem.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arsenal Pulp Press (May 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 225 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1551522012
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1551522012
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.5 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,819,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9,708 in LGBTQ+ Genre Fiction (Books)
- #142,910 in Social Sciences (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 8 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Important information

To report an issue with this product, click here.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Sarah Schulman

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Sarah Schulman is the author of novels, nonfiction books, plays and movies. Forthcoming in May 2021, LET THE RECORD SHOW: A Political History of ACT UP, NY 1987-1993 (FSG). Her most recent novels are MAGGIE TERRY and THE COSMOPOLITANS,(The Feminist Press) which was picked as one of the "Best Books of 2016" by Publishers' Weekly, and a nonfiction book CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair (Arsenal). She recently published ISRAEL/PALESTINE AND THE QUEER INTERNATIONAL from Duke University Press, THE GENTRIFICATION OF THE MIND: WItness to a Lost Imagination by University of California Press, the paperback of TIES THAT BIND: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences and the paperback edition of her novel THE MERE FUTURE from Arsenal Pulp.Previous novels are THE CHILD, SHIMMER, EMPATHY, RAT BOHEMIA, PEOPLE IN TROUBLE, AFTER DELORES, GIRLS VISIONS AND EVERYTHING and THE SOPHIE HOROWITZ STORY. Her nonfiction titles are TIES THAT BIND: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, STAGESTRUCK:Theater, AIDS and the Marketing of Gay America, and MY AMERICAN HISTORY: Lesbian and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years. A working playwright, her productions include: CARSON McCULLERS (published by Playscripts Ink), MANIC FLIGHT REACTION and the theatrical adaptation of Isaac Singer's ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY. As a screenwriter, her films include THE OWLS (co-written with director Cheryl Dunye)- Berlin Film Festival 2010, MOMMY IS COMING (co-written with director Cheryl Dunye)- Berlin Film Festival selection 2011. and JASON AND SHIRLEY, directed by Stephen Winter (Museum of Modern Art). She is co-producer with Jim Hubbard of his feature documentary UNITED IN ANGER: A History of ACT UP. As a journalist, her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and Interview. She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwrighting, a Fullbright in Judaic Studies, two American Library Association Book Awards, and is the 2009 recipient of the Kessler Prize for sustained contribution to LGBT studies. Sarah is Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York, College of State Island, a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University. A member of the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace, Sarah is faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at The College of Staten Island. She lives in New York.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

8 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

smart, true, a pleasure to read

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2013

Verified Purchase

There are plenty of razor-sharp bon mots in EMPATHY -- "Of course, in some ways Freudians are a cult because they have both a reductionist vocabulary and a spiritual leader," or "If only I could perfect forgetting and being awake at the same time...I'd be happy and put the alcohol and pharmaceutical companies out of business simultaneously," -- but that's not what makes it special.

No. EMPATHY is wonderful when it is sincere and direct. "Simple words are the best," says our heroine, Anna, at one point, and Schulman proves it over and over again. I was astonished by the way that Schulman offered cleverness, analysis, and complexity only to strip all that away, down to the bare essentials.

The novel is set in 1991, in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, and follows two characters: Anna, a lesbian whose pursuit of straight or bisexual women has caused much heartbreak and Doc, an unlicensed shrink who uses the skills he learned from his psychotherapist parents to do counseling at $10 per hour.

Doc has suffered from a terrible heartbreak of his own, at the hands of a woman referred to only as the Woman in White Leather. At one point, thinking back on what he always wanted from her and never got, this is what he says:

"She would let Doc say every word without being rushed. She would let him have a long time to say it. She would not be planning her rebuttal all along. She would ask clarifying questions, not trick ones. But she would only be able to do that if she really wanted to know. If she didn't really want to know it wasn't love. If it was, she would have listened and then she and Doc could stay together."

There are so many moments like that one in EMPATHY, moments that are so vulnerable and familiar that if you've lived even a little you'll feel naked as you read.

At another point, Anna talks about attending the the funeral of her friend Nancy's mother. Nobody in Nancy's family knew that she was gay, and to spare Nancy further emotional anguish at a difficult moment, Anna decides to "look straight" at the funeral:

"I put on a beautiful black dress, designer stockings, shined my heels, makeup, two earrings from the same set. Then I got on the subway. An hour later, I climb out in the middle of nowhere and up ahead I see three of my friends. You know what? They all made the same decision. They all put on their best, most feminine clothing and they looked so beautiful. I loved them. We were walking together, our high heels clicking on the streets, our waists shapely, necks exposed and decorated. Then we stepped into the chapel and all Nancy's relatives were wearing polyester double knits. They couldn't stop staring. Later, at the shiva, her Uncle Heshy asked me if we were a rock and roll band. It's really hard to get away with being the wrong thing."

Doesn't that last line just rip your heart out? And EMPATHY is just one deeply moving, trenchant passage after another. It has a sort of twist to it which I should have seen coming; at one point, Doc pretty much announces what the twist is. But I didn't figure it out until almost three-quarters of the way through the book, and when I did I felt so stupid. I wondered how I could have missed something so obvious, and I felt like a real jerk.

EMPATHY is short and every word counts. It's almost insanely quotable, if my review hasn't already driven that home -- every page, every line has something amazing about it. "There is a way that people tell their secrets. If they make it into a big production, its no secret. Only shame is the true indication of authentic camouflage" is the quote that made me buy the book. The first paragraph is a marvel: "Her passion was like sweat without the sweat. It had no idea. No idea of what clarity is. It was like two holes burned in the sheet. It was one long neck from lip to chest, as long as a highway. Hot black tar, even at night."

I can't recommend EMPATHY highly enough. Beautifully written, funny at times, memorable. A phenomenal book.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

F. noyes

Well...

Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2012

Verified Purchase

It struck me she's a writer with considerable talent, but this one's a hard one to fathom. Written almost in the stream of consciousness vein which can be ok, but not my favorite. To much implicit story I wasn't brought into I guess.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

It walks so high... then falls off a cliff.

Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2003

Sara Schulman, Empathy (Dutton, 1992)
Until roughly twenty minutes before writing this review, I was getting ready to say Empathy was going to be a definite for my best twenty-five reads of 2003 list. Then I read the last three chapters.
The first twenty-seven are brilliant. The story's two main characters are Anna O., a lesbian attempting to get over an old relationship and find someone new, and Doc, a post-Freudian therapist who finds prospective clients by handing out business cards on the street and will never keep a client for more than three sessions. Eventually, their two stories intertwine as Anna, finding one of Doc's business cards, makes an appointment with him. The two of them then proceed to take on relationships of all sorts, Jewish funerals, AIDS, the homeless, and a rainbow of other topics with a wicked wit. Doc obsesses over an old girlfriend as well, and feels an almost supernatural connection with Anna. When one of the main questions in a book is "will Doc end up having a fourth session with Anna?", it's impossible to write a review in a way that makes it sound as important as it actually is, but Anna, Doc, and the supporting cast of characters (Anna's family, Doc's patients and mentor, Anna's old girlfriend's mother, Doc's old girlfriend) are so well-drawn and engaging that it's well-night impossible not to be drawn in to the point where you sit up at night thinking about such things.
Then Schulman hits you with the kicker, the novel's climax, and though it's nothing we haven't seen before (telling you where would be the ultimate plot spoiler, however), it's a sucker punch delivered with such aplomb that it demands a "thank you, ma'am, may I have another." I had figured I knew where the book was going, had it mapped out in my head (and it was a brilliant ending, too), then Schulman flipped all my expectations on their heads and delivered what may have been the only climax that was actually better than what I thought it would be.
Then we get to Chapter Twenty-Seven, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. We spend two chapters involved in political polemic that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the novel, and while they are two brief chapters, their very existence in the book poisons the whole thing. Schulman attempts to wrap things up in the last chapter by going back to the original topic of life-after-Doc Anna, but by then it's too late. The rhythm, the style, the all-around beauty of the book has been dashed against a curb on a dark, rainy street.
My advice? By all means, read this novel. Up to chapter twenty-six. Then skip ahead to chapter thirty. You will still find an ending that is an anticlimax, to say the least, but you will at least be spared pointless political diatribe along the way. ** ½

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

John Labella

I 've re-read it at least 8 times over the years.

Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2002

Aside from being one of the funniest books I've ever read, it has a special quality: Certain paragraphs will spring out at me and I'll think: "I've always wanted the words to describe that kind of feeling or circumstance, and there on the page are the perfect words."

I tend to devalue words as having little effect on the world, but reading Empathy reminds me that good writers can keep people alive when their sense of reality is questioned so brutally by the mainstream world. This book feels like my bible more than any thing else. And it has many funny moments in it. Oh . . . there were also paragraphs where I didn't have a clue what she was talking about.... Still, all in all, my favorite book of all this decade.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Gloria Spicer

A classic, tour de force of styles and humour

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book ought to be more widely recognised as a classic of the literary canon, for inventiveness, brilliance of its combination of styles and depth of humour.

One person found this helpful

See more reviews