Top 10 literary scenes from the battle of the sexes

Eli Gottlieb has worked as a Senior Editor of Elle Magazine and taught American Literature as a Lecturer at the University of Padova, Italy. His first novel, The Boy Who Went Away, won the prestigious Rome Prize, the 1998 McKitterick Prize from the British Society of Authors, and was a New York Times Notable book. He is a contributing editor for 5280 magazine.

His latest novel is Now You See Him.

For the Guardian, he named his "top 10 scenes from the battle of the sexes." One novel on the list:

Herzog by Saul Bellow

Arguably his most perfectly achieved book (Auden told him it's only fault was it was too well-written) it's also a novel of paybacks for real-world slights. That may account for the prussic acid nastiness with which the adulterous lovers at the heart of the book are depicted. Bellow stands quite justly accused of writing somewhat one-dimensional female characters, but the dialogues between the power-mad bluestocking wife and the thwarted professor-husband, are fabulously, irresistibly mean-spirited.

Read about the other items on Gottlieb's list.

Read an excerpt from Now You See Him, and learn more about the book and author at Eli Gottlieb's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Eli Gottlieb's Now You See Him.

--Marshal Zeringue