"Margo Jefferson's memoir proceeds at pace, ricocheting off the artists and thinkers that have shaped her. Here, W.E.B. Du Bois rubs shoulders with George Eliot, Harriet Beecher Stowe meets up with Kara Walker, and Ella Fitzgerald's music emerges with the intimacy of a parent's voice. Tracing the lines between labour and privilege, glamour and ruin, Constructing a Nervous System is the story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic's personal and intellectual formation. It is also an account of the possibilities and strictures of contemporary America; one that shows us how, even within cultures that will not make room for us, we might learn to construct ourselves anew." -- Back cover.