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Empathy
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.
225 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1992
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1405 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Schulman
59 books796 followersSarah Schulman is a longtime AIDS and queer activist, and a cofounder of the MIX Festival and the ACT UP Oral History Project. She is a playwright and the author of seventeen books, including the novels The Mere Future, Shimmer, Rat Bohemia, After Delores, and People in Trouble, as well as nonfiction works such as The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life during the Reagan/Bush Years, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, and Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. She is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at The City University of New York, College of Staten Island.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
January 23, 2008
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
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
May 13, 2024
“Lesbian literature’s first foray into postmodernism”. This is a fun use of Freud Sarah pls dm me
January 9, 2009
The most extraordinary and accomplished (to date) of Schulman's amazing body of work. This turns Freud's Dora on its ear, inside out, and dresses her in drag, and it's just so sad and powerful, all the way through.
January 30, 2025
Ignore the top review on here that says to ignore the final few chapters. I honestly don't know how the book would function without them.
Spare, elliptical, touching. Too difficult for me to really get a handle on after one read but it filled me with a strong sense of compassion and humanity.
Spare, elliptical, touching. Too difficult for me to really get a handle on after one read but it filled me with a strong sense of compassion and humanity.
July 3, 2020
"Outside, global relations seemed to be one big blob. A comet. Out of control."
April 1, 2021
this experimental novel deals w a jewish middle-class lesbian in NYC in the late 1980s, early 1990s, grappling with her identity and wanting to be fully loved for who she is ~~ in order to realize this love, she has to hang out with another neurotic middle-class jew, a DIY talk-therapist named doc. both characters are hyper-aware of the poverty of the city, the people asking them for money constantly, all their friends dying of AIDS into a mundane event, as well as being hyper aware of their own bodies moving through the city and through unrequited love. this book switches around forms, dreams, genders, always with fear of the future, of waking up alone. the complicated multi-personalities of the jewish family dynamic in the script/play sections was, lovingly, the most grounding aspect of the narrative for me.
June 27, 2012
I'm not really sure what to say about this book... I'm not entirely sure I understand what happened. Empathy certainly has that chaotic, surrealist, psychoanalytic-meltdown style that seems to come from post-modern new york-based literature. I think Arthur Nersesian took notes from Schulman's rapid character deterioration/confusion.
I'm not sad I read it, but I feel like there's a lot going on in this story and it's hard to keep all of the strands in mind at once. It could use a book club discussion to make sense of it.
But there were certainly moments of poetic flair, and sentences I re-read a few times to try and keep for later. Not bad for my first Schulman book, I suppose.
I'm not sad I read it, but I feel like there's a lot going on in this story and it's hard to keep all of the strands in mind at once. It could use a book club discussion to make sense of it.
But there were certainly moments of poetic flair, and sentences I re-read a few times to try and keep for later. Not bad for my first Schulman book, I suppose.
September 18, 2024
This is weird and compelling novel. While there is technically a plot, this seemed to be much more about the time. There was a big part of it about connection and identity, but also so much about culture and morality being faced going into the 1990s. It's about being a lesbian in a straight world, but also about thinking deeply in the face of a cultural push towards individualism and apathy. It's about the breakdown of the American dream -- but also the breakdown of the idea that it ever was really. There is a lot more here, but overall, I found it fascinating.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2024
This book is odd. Beautifully written. It was experimental and strange and captivating.
December 20, 2022
Delicious psychoanalytic contemporary modernist lesbian novel moment. Definitely my favourite thing I've read this year. It's just unfortunate in the appendices Sarah Schulman says some pretty transphobic things 😭😭😭
August 10, 2025
“Talk some more so I can watch your mouth move.”
“I’m not the kind of person for whom time heals. The only thing that heals me is resolution.”
“Enough reminiscing, Doc told himself sternly. I could spend the rest of my life poring over the first thirty-one years of it.”
“Nostalgia is so much more palatable than real feeling.”
“I wanted her to say something that showed that she knew me. That she watched me. That she knew what kind of person I was. Not agree. I didn’t need her to agree. Just notice.”
“Well, Doc, sometimes I’m obsessed with my love for her. And then again, sometimes I tell myself that there is no need to take desire and dress it up as beauty.”
“I’m not the kind of person for whom time heals. The only thing that heals me is resolution.”
“Enough reminiscing, Doc told himself sternly. I could spend the rest of my life poring over the first thirty-one years of it.”
“Nostalgia is so much more palatable than real feeling.”
“I wanted her to say something that showed that she knew me. That she watched me. That she knew what kind of person I was. Not agree. I didn’t need her to agree. Just notice.”
“Well, Doc, sometimes I’m obsessed with my love for her. And then again, sometimes I tell myself that there is no need to take desire and dress it up as beauty.”
February 24, 2024
I tried to read this at the beginning of last summer and could not get into it, I think because I hadn't been reading nearly as much new narrative/experimental fiction/whatever. I'm really glad I tried it again because I loved it. I love the prose so much, it's so dumb and funny and unexpected, I don't know if I understood everything that was going on but I appreciated the way it calls into question dykery and gender relationships... very cool! The cover of the copy I have, which is the copy that Zoe got from the library before they went to new zealand I miss you zoe, says that the book is "topped off with a delicious surprise" and honestly yeah they are right. even though that surprise was so clear it was executed in a way where I did not see it coming and it was very delicious to me! Made the book more interesting. I appreciate the politics of this book too and the relationship of Judaism/lesbianism/psychology. Definitely want to read more of Sarah Schulman's prose... also Eileen Myles epigraph yuh
January 23, 2011
A friend told me this was her favorite book, and the whole time I was reading it I kept thinking "really?!". Honestly, trying to figure out why my friend liked it was the only reason I saw this book through to the end. Well, and the fact that it was so short made this easier. Something about the arty style of the writing felt forced and hard to follow. Dreadful. I haven't read more by this author, and maybe if I am truly desperate for something to read I will give another of her books a try.
January 2, 2025
this year is for books about how the heart and self claw their way out of you in an effort to exist truthfully + with open eyes that also see others as real and full. sarah schulman ur books r so important to me. loved “being a lesbian is about me. okay?”
June 6, 2025
Weird in a great way
May 1, 2022
this was really good truly underrated i think about it all the time read this you guys
May 6, 2017
"Freud is just an idea. It can work for you or against you." In some ways Empathy is a departure from Schulman's previous 4 novels, but it might be more accurate to say that it's an intellectual/Freudian distillation of her usual themes or that the intellectual/psychoanalytic is brought to the forefront instead of the subtext. In any event, this book is far less "plotty" than her previous work. Instead it uses Freudian dream-analysis, metaphor, and probably a lot of other Freudian concepts that I don't know the words for to explore ideas such as: self, homosexuality and homophobia, morality, listening, conflict, war, love, rejection, AIDS, Jewish funerals, pop culture, femininity, and misogyny. I would not choose this as the FIRST Schulman book I read; if you're already familiar the themes she works with, the dream-like non-linear style will be easier to deal with.
October 29, 2017
It's hard to summarise this book without spoiling it. It's about Anna and Doc and psychology and...stuff. Really, I have no idea how to summarise, so that will have to do. It's about a woman coming to terms with being a lesbian and what that means to her. (But not in a "coming out" sort of way.)[return][return]Anyway! This is very experimental, with some scenes written in script format, and it took me a little longer to get into than After Delores did, but it did hook me and I ended up really enjoying it.[return][return]I still have three more of Schulman's books here to read and I'm very excited about them.
April 15, 2014
I had to read this for my LGQ lit class. It was an interesting read. You do need to know a bit about Freud and his case studies to get more out of this story than just the average stumble-upon reader. I could see the big plot twist coming but a lot of people [in my class] didn't until we were discussing things and I mentioned it. They all latched on to that idea henceforth and it ended up being the case. It wasn't much of a surprise for me, but it was still interesting. It's an okay read, again--more relevant if someone knows a bit about psychology or had read up on Freud and the cases referenced in this book [Anna O. and Dora].
March 21, 2017
“I’m not trying to pass, except to myself. I mean, how many times can a person be told in a multitude of ways that she will never be fully human because she is not a man? The logical conclusion is to become a man to herself, simply to retain the most basic self-respect.”
“What are you going to do now, Anna, cry in my ear? Crying is a manipulation. Saying how you feel is a manipulation because it gives information with the hopes of impacting my behavior. Get it? Get it?”
Two (unrelated) feelings that have dominated my adult life and I never expected to see articulated in fiction.
“What are you going to do now, Anna, cry in my ear? Crying is a manipulation. Saying how you feel is a manipulation because it gives information with the hopes of impacting my behavior. Get it? Get it?”
Two (unrelated) feelings that have dominated my adult life and I never expected to see articulated in fiction.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2008
I'm still trying to figure out what I think of this. I think there are some undertones that, if intended as some sort of universal narrative (which may or may not be the case) about womanhood/lesbianism, it could be read as anti-trans. i'm just not sure. Nevertheless, the book is funny, and it does have its moments of clarity and insight.
February 1, 2009
Anna O. is a lesbian living in East Village in 1991 who is ready to give up on love. Doc is an lay therapist who hands out his card on street corners, charges $10 an hour, and allows only 3 sessions.
They talk about listening.
They talk about listening.
June 21, 2013
Stay tuned for a piece about growing up as the last generation relying on retrogressive Freudianism, library homosexuality, and brief mentions of "Lesbianism"--with the capital L--and how it helped me IDENTIFY with Empathy (in Emily Books)
October 7, 2013
Having read this book through once, I immediately need to restart reading it again from the beginning. Thanks for blowing my mind, Sarah Schulman! Also, non-shitty lesbian novels: there are not enough of you.
November 9, 2008
Often witty, but the over-all writing isn't that great.
Read
July 25, 2024La aceptación del cambio, la eterna discrepancia entre generaciones que no se entienden mutuamente, pero se quieren. No sé muy bien qué decir ahora que he terminado el libro. Había hecho unos comentarios previos que tenían cierto sentido: ahora no sé si lo tienen. [Tampoco puedo valorarlo]
———
Es fascinante observar las similitudes entre el análisis del mundo que se presenta en esta novela y el que vivimos actualmente. La generación que protagoniza el libro refleja una sensación compartida por muchos hoy en día: la percepción de que no alcanzarán el mismo nivel de riqueza que sus padres y la nostalgia por un pasado que parece más sencillo y lleno de oportunidades.
Además, la obra ofrece una radiografía de los problemas psicológicos que, aunque no se reconocían abiertamente en su momento, estaban presentes y siguen vigentes. Las cuestiones que se tratan sobre la homosexualidad y el psicoanálisis, si bien resultan curiosas, considero que están desfasadas y me alegra ver que, al menos en occidente hemos avanzado notablemente.
La manera con la que se refieren a la masculinidad y femineidad resulta a veces desagradable y parece tétrico la manera de sugerir que los muertos [por sida] son una consecuencia por mostrarse como son; y no se ve como una consecuencia de un sistema que reduce la homosexualidad a los márgenes de esta. Muchas veces forzando a la clandestinidad y, en consecuencia, a la proliferación de prácticas peligrosas para la salud.
Por otro lado, temas tan actuales como la gentrificación de los barrios, la precarización laboral y el neocolonialismo turístico son cuestiones que, aunque hoy se discuten con mayor frecuencia, ya estaban latentes en los años noventa.
Lo realmente interesante de este libro no radica en su trama ni en una prosa que podría considerarse poco elaborada, sino en su capacidad para analizar la sociedad y poner de manifiesto las profundas incoherencias de las que todos somos partícipes.
———
Es fascinante observar las similitudes entre el análisis del mundo que se presenta en esta novela y el que vivimos actualmente. La generación que protagoniza el libro refleja una sensación compartida por muchos hoy en día: la percepción de que no alcanzarán el mismo nivel de riqueza que sus padres y la nostalgia por un pasado que parece más sencillo y lleno de oportunidades.
Además, la obra ofrece una radiografía de los problemas psicológicos que, aunque no se reconocían abiertamente en su momento, estaban presentes y siguen vigentes. Las cuestiones que se tratan sobre la homosexualidad y el psicoanálisis, si bien resultan curiosas, considero que están desfasadas y me alegra ver que, al menos en occidente hemos avanzado notablemente.
La manera con la que se refieren a la masculinidad y femineidad resulta a veces desagradable y parece tétrico la manera de sugerir que los muertos [por sida] son una consecuencia por mostrarse como son; y no se ve como una consecuencia de un sistema que reduce la homosexualidad a los márgenes de esta. Muchas veces forzando a la clandestinidad y, en consecuencia, a la proliferación de prácticas peligrosas para la salud.
Por otro lado, temas tan actuales como la gentrificación de los barrios, la precarización laboral y el neocolonialismo turístico son cuestiones que, aunque hoy se discuten con mayor frecuencia, ya estaban latentes en los años noventa.
Lo realmente interesante de este libro no radica en su trama ni en una prosa que podría considerarse poco elaborada, sino en su capacidad para analizar la sociedad y poner de manifiesto las profundas incoherencias de las que todos somos partícipes.
December 24, 2023
I enjoyed Sarah Schulman's examination of psychology, psychoanalysis and lesbianism in 'Empathy', but more so her picture of New York during the fall of capitalism.
Doc is a post-Freudian street psycho-analyst, the son of two actual psychiatrists, who has foregone the expensive education in order to live in the slums of the lower east side and offer cut-price counselling to the locals.
Anna is a lesbian only attracted to straight and bi women, rejecting other lesbians for being too 'masculine', a trait she tries hard to suppress in herself.
Around them, the homeless and drug-addicted live on the footpaths, and their friends are dying from HIV (published 1992).
Doc counsels Anna about how best to live in the fall of capitalism, where the structural inequality is so huge and pervasive, and the individual is so powerless to change the merciless system, that its best to ignore it for one's own sanity, and concentrate on one's personal neurosis instead.
This book gives us an insight into the shallow concerns of modern American citizens, as their 'democracy' collapses and consumes itself all around them.
Doc is a post-Freudian street psycho-analyst, the son of two actual psychiatrists, who has foregone the expensive education in order to live in the slums of the lower east side and offer cut-price counselling to the locals.
Anna is a lesbian only attracted to straight and bi women, rejecting other lesbians for being too 'masculine', a trait she tries hard to suppress in herself.
Around them, the homeless and drug-addicted live on the footpaths, and their friends are dying from HIV (published 1992).
Doc counsels Anna about how best to live in the fall of capitalism, where the structural inequality is so huge and pervasive, and the individual is so powerless to change the merciless system, that its best to ignore it for one's own sanity, and concentrate on one's personal neurosis instead.
This book gives us an insight into the shallow concerns of modern American citizens, as their 'democracy' collapses and consumes itself all around them.
November 13, 2019
Empathy
Influential popular philosopher Roman Krznaric argues our brains are wired for social connection: empathy is at the heart of who we are. It's an essential, transforming quality we must develop for the 21st Century.
Through encounters with actors, activists, groundbreaking designers, undercover journalists, nurses, bankers and neuroscientists, Krznaric defines a new breed of adventurer. He sets out the six life-enhancing habits of highly empathic people, whose skills enable them to connect with others in extraordinary ways.
Empathy has the power to transform relationships, from the personal to the political. Krznaric contends that, as we move on from an age of introspection, empathy will be key to fundamental social change - making this book a manifesto for revolution.
https://www.fahasa.com/
Influential popular philosopher Roman Krznaric argues our brains are wired for social connection: empathy is at the heart of who we are. It's an essential, transforming quality we must develop for the 21st Century.
Through encounters with actors, activists, groundbreaking designers, undercover journalists, nurses, bankers and neuroscientists, Krznaric defines a new breed of adventurer. He sets out the six life-enhancing habits of highly empathic people, whose skills enable them to connect with others in extraordinary ways.
Empathy has the power to transform relationships, from the personal to the political. Krznaric contends that, as we move on from an age of introspection, empathy will be key to fundamental social change - making this book a manifesto for revolution.
https://www.fahasa.com/
September 3, 2017
I liked the script chapters and i appreciated the originality (in its style & form) of this novel, but overall i felt a bit like it was trying to show me it was smarter than me. I also did not like Anna confronting her family relentlessly about her homosexuality; those bits felt heavy-handed to me, and maybe a bit "dated".
February 23, 2022
A reminder of what a really good book entails and sets the standard for what deserves a full 5 stars. I really enjoyed reading Empathy, and how this particular copy included an intro and supplementary material as context which otherwise might have gone over my head.
I learnt so much and really recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I learnt so much and really recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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