100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Enjoy overnight NZ-wide delivery from our NZ-owned independent bookstore! 🎉

The Mystery of Perception

A Conversation with Lynne Tillman
4.92 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 13 ratings, 3 reviews)
Brief Description
Candid and instantly engaging, this will be the go-to introduction to Lynne Tillman for readers everywhere and is a must-have for any fan. A breakthrough for the legendary underground icon, who speaks about her life as a writer and her work in a stunning and candid... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK Please add to wishlist to be notified when back in stock

Sorry, we're currently out of stock of The Mystery of Perception. Please add to your Wishlist and we'll send you an email as soon as it's back in stock.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Candid and instantly engaging, this will be the go-to introduction to Lynne Tillman for readers everywhere and is a must-have for any fan. A breakthrough for the legendary underground icon, who speaks about her life as a writer and her work in a stunning and candid conversation with writer and critic Taylor Lewandowski.

A book-length interview with Lynne Tillman, beloved icon of underground American literature, that spans memoir, scrapbook, cultural criticism, and history in a lively, compact package. Critic Taylor Lewandowski strings together her many lives and worlds, from a Long Island childhood, to her colourful Downtown NYC life in the 1970s and 1980s, to her psychoanalytical fiction, to her historicising New York City with Stephen Shore's Factory photographs and Jeannette Watson's Books & Co., to her “Madame Realism” art criticism.

Lynne Tillman has devoted her life to using language as a tool to synthesise the chaos of our world into intricate, fragmented pieces about perception, gender, photography, family, American history, and much more, and this pocket-size primer is a fascinating narrative unto itself that will be the jumping-off point to her vast oeuvre from now on.

Anyone with a passing interest in 20th-century culture will find fascinating her run-ins with the likes of Simone de Beauvoir, Méret Oppenheim, Charles Henri Ford, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, John Cale, Paula Fox, Barbara Kruger, and Kathy Acker, just to name a few. Her enthusiasm, curiosity, and humour serve as a refreshing model, or in her words, an "image" which has created an alternative path for writers. As she says in the interview, "I know myself in relation to others."

Featuring beautiful, full-colour photographs and contributions from Andrew Durbin, Emily LaBarge, and Claire Donato, this is the ideal introduction into the encyclopaedic, obsessive mind of Lynne Tillman.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781648230936

Publisher: powerHouse Books,U.S.

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 10 June 2025

Country: United States

Imprint: Archway Editions

Illustration: 50 Illustrations

Contributors:

  • Contributions by Emily LaBarge
  • With Lynne Tillman
  • Introduction by Andrew Durbin
  • Contributions by Claire Donato

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 124.0mm

Height: 178.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 128

About the Author

Taylor Lewandowski has written for Interview Magazine, Bookforum, Los Angeles Review of Books, Forever Magazine, and The Creative Independent, among other publications. He owns Dream Palace Books & Coffee and lives in Indianapolis, IN.

Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. Her novels are Haunted Houses; Motion Sickness; Cast in Doubt; No Lease on Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction; American Genius, A Comedy, and Men and Apparitions, nominated for a Republic of Consciousness Prize (UK, 2021). Her nonfiction books include The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965–67, with photographs by Stephen Shore; What Would Lynne Tillman Do?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and The Broad Picture. Her essays and stories are published in various journals including Frieze, Bomb, The Whitney Review, Bookforum, Aperture, Artforum, N+1, and in artist’s monographs and gallery books such as those of Dana Schutz, Steve Locke, Stanley Whitney, Amy Sillman, and Raymond Pettibon, and in museum catalogues inculding The Whitney Museum of American Art; The ICP Boston, Hammer Museum, and MOCA. Tillman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship; a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and was awarded the Katherine Anne Porter Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her most recent work is Mothercare, an autobiographical book-length essay. In 2025, Soft Skull Press will publish her collected stories, Thrilled to Death. In 2026, Zwirner Press will publish a collection of her essays on art and culture. She lives in Manhattan with bass player David Hofstra.

Andrew Durbin is the author of MacArthur Park (2017) and Skyland (2020). His book about Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, The Wonderful World that Almost Was, is forthcoming from FSG in the winter of 2026. He is the editor-in-chief of frieze and lives in London. 

Claire Donato is the author of three full-length books, most recently Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts (Archway Editions, 2023). Her work has been included in numerous anthologies, and recent writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Parapraxis, Forever, The Chicago Review, Fence, and The Brooklyn Rail. In addition to writing, Claire makes music, illustrates, and has a 35mm photography practice. She lives in Brooklyn with her cat Woebegone.

Emily LaBarge is a writer based in London. Her work has appeared in Artforum, Bookforum, the London Review of Books, the New York Times, and the Paris Review, among other publications. Dog Days will be published in the UK by Peninsula Press in 2025. 

More from Biography & Memoir

View all
  • This Angry Pen of Mine
    This Angry Pen of Mine by Layne Staley invites you to dive into the untold creative world of Layne Staley, the legendary voice behind Alice in Chains. This extraordinary collection showcases his handwritten lyrics, deeply personal poetry, stunning original artwork, rare photos, fan tributes, and so much more. Step into the world of Layne Staley like never before. For the...
    Hardback
    $7299
    Elsewhere:
    $8999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Famesick
    Chronicling the tumultuous decade between the premiere of Girls to her 2021 shotgun wedding (minus the baby, because she has no uterus), Lena Dunham takes us through her journey with her trademark mix of humor, unsparing honesty, and keen eye for detail. We peek behind the scenes - of her work, her family, her relationships, and her battle to reclaim her body...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3500
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Dogs, Boys and Other Things I've Cried About
    From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee--known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue--comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman's search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it. A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Signed Copy
    New Release
    Stakes
    Read our interview with author Noelle McCarthy! A darkly funny, sparkling follow-up to the author’s bestselling memoir Grand. You have to invite him in. You have to want the vampire’s badness in the house with you. Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Built for This
    Raised among strong women, butcher's benches, and hard ideas about what men are meant to be, Brad Poulter grows up knowing he's different long before he has the words for it. But in late '90s small-town New Zealand, 'different' isn't discussed, it's managed. Joining the Royal New Zealand Navy offers escape, certainty, and belonging. The rules are clear, the uniform...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Even the Good Girls Will Cry
    Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a fan letter to a P.O. box, Melissa Auf der Maur's first band scored an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins in her bohemian home town, Montreal. Sensing Melissa's talent, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love. Whisked from her local scene, Melissa joined Hole just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    An Ocean and a Day
    An utterly riveting, moving and poignant memoir of grief and loss that will speak to anyone who's ever lost someone they love. An Ocean and a Day is Hannah Richell's personal account of losing her husband, Matt, in a surfing accident on Tamarama beach in 2014. It is the story of the grief journey she travelled over the first two...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    A Place to Stand
    A Place to Stand by Clare Ward is a profound memoir that delves into the life of a country doctor living and working in the Hokianga Harbour area in the far north of Aotearoa New Zealand. This region is sparsely populated and poses numerous health challenges. This thoughtful account details Clare’s thirty-year career, highlighting the people she works with and...
    Hardback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Rule of Lies
    Written with all the pace and energy of a John Grisham novel … An incredible true story and a great read! BILL BROWDER, author of Red Notice and Freezing Order An American lawyer’s brilliant, propulsive story of witnessing and playing a part in the transformation of Russia under Yeltsin and Putin. A true tale of fascinating personalities, criminal intrigue, harrowing...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Rory
    The New York Times bestseller The #1 Irish Times bestseller The definitive biography of Rory McIlroy, the most important, popular and confounding player of the post-Tiger era. Rory McIlroy contains multitudes. The child of a working-class family from a small town in a war-torn homeland now commutes to work in his own private jet and counts billionaires as confidants. He can overwhelm a golf...
    Paperback
    $3699
    Elsewhere:
    $4199
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer
    Novelist, memoirist and playwright Witi Ihimaera – author of Pounamu, Pounamu and The Whale Rider – decided, at the age of eighty, to dive back into the water and spend a year full-time at Te Wānanga Takiura, immersing himself in his own language, in te reo Māori. This book tells the story of this kaikaukau, this swimmer, and his year...
    Paperback
    $3500
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    This Is Me: A Reckoning
    This is a searingly honest and moving memoir from double Golden Globe-nominatedactress Hayden Panettiere. Hayden Panettiere has been in front of the camera since before she could talk. She roseto stardom typecasted as Hollywood's blonde girl next door. As a young celebrity,naysayers were certain she would crash and burn. Not one to disappoint, she did.Hayden Panettiere's irreverent memoir satisfies our...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.