Ida

**A witty, provocative, prescient novel about a woman who is famous for being famous, from the visionary author of *Tender Buttons *and* The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas*** “Odd, sad and happy events populate the novel’s pages, while doppelgängers lurk everywhere: Ida becomes Winnie, because she’s winning; characters like parents to Ida come and go, and men who may, or do, become her husbands appear, disappear, reappear. . . . Release from textual and narrative tension comes, in part, through [Gertrude] Stein’s remarkable voice. . . . I enjoy Stein most as a theorist: her ideas startle me, in whatever form they appear.” **—Lynne Tillman, *The New York Times Book Review*** “The strangest book I read was *Ida* , by Gertrude Stein, which my mom gave to me without much fanfare. This must have been when I was in high school. It’s an odd book, with a telescoping narrator and that new-brain prose of Stein’s. My first encounter with very simple sentences looted of sense. I loved it.” **—Ben Marcus**