Kyra: A Novel » (Unabridged)

Carol Gilligan is a psychologist and writer who lives in New York City and in the Berkshires. Her ground-breaking book, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory’ and Women’s Development, has been translated into eighteen languages. With her students, she co-authored and co-edited four books on women’s psychology and girls’ development: Meeting at the Crossroads, Between Voice and Silence, Making Connections, and Women, Girls, and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance. At Harvard, where she was the first Graham Professor of Gender Studies, her award-winning research led to the founding of the university’s Center on Gender and Education. She is now University Professor at New York University.

From the internationally renowned author of In a Different Voice, a remarkable debut novel: a love story that introduces an unforgettable character in modern fiction, Kyra, and a superb new fiction writer, Carol Gilligan. Kyra is an architect designing a new city, a woman of humor and courage living in a vibrant world of family, friends, and colleagues and determined to break out of old structures. When she meets Andreas, a director staging an innovative production of Tosca, neither wants to fall in love–and yet, inevitably, they do. Their story takes us from Cambridge and an island off the coast of Massachusetts to Vienna, Thailand, Cyprus, and Wales as Kyra seeks the deepest truths about herself, other people, loyalty, and love. This reaching leads her to commit singular acts that startle and shock, inspiring new freedom for others as well as for Kyra herself. Rich with Carol Gilligan’s signature gifts–emotional wisdom, subtle renderings of the intricacies of human relationship, conflict and choice, and lyrical prose–Kyra is a luminous, magnificent novel by a writer realizing the range of her powers.

The New York Times - Louisa Thomas

Kyra is both a thought-provoking polemic and a love story…[it] is best when Gilligan herself seems quietest, when she allows her fictional creation to emerge as a person in her own right. She may be prone to improbable utopian visions and Deepak Chopra moments, but Kyra is also thoughtful and observant. She comes across as a sensitive journal writer—searching, trying to make sense of her life, polishing her thoughts and words. The writing in her narrative is sometimes turgid…but Kyra is too likable and her quest—to find a little harmony in a broken world—too important to be easily dismissed.