"Lisa Alther and Françoise Gilot have been friends for more than twenty-five years. Although from different backgrounds (Gilot from cosmopolitan Paris, Alther from small-town Tennessee) and different generations, they found they have a great deal in common as women who managed to support themselves with careers in the arts, while simultaneously balancing the obligations of work and parenthood. About Women is their extended conversation, in which they talk about everything important to them: their childhoods, the impact of war on their lives and their work, fashion, self-invention, style, feminism, even child rearing. They also talk about the creative impulse and the importance of art. This is a charming and endearing dialogue between two intelligent and often funny women as they ponder what it is to be a woman. Lisa Alther was born in 1944 in Tennessee. She is widely known for her first novel, Kinflicks (1975), a feminist coming-of-age narrative that broke new ground in terms of what could be written and talked about. She is the author of seven additional works of fiction, a memoir Kinfolks : falling off the family tree : the search for my Melungeon ancestors, and a narrative history of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Françoise, Gilot was born in 1921 in Paris. In 1943 she met Pablo Picasso, with whom she had a decade-long relationship. She is the author of the bestselling Life with Picasso. She married the French painter Luc Simon and later the American vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk."--Provided by publisher.

Preface -- The war room -- The Virginia Club -- La guerre en dentelle -- Five generations of women -- The little black dress -- Ceremonies in white -- England's green and pleasant land -- The middle path.