Dreaming of Hitler

Few writers today have created more stir than Daphne Merkin, who is admired as much for her personal daring as for the wit and power of her prose. Whether writing about her own cosmetic surgery "fix," the subversive thrill of shoplifting, or the seductive fantasies of lesbianism, Merkin is tough-minded, compulsively readable, and at times recklessly candid. The bold and startling title essay, in which she confronts the demons of the Holocaust, is an example of this gifted, provocative writer at her most affecting. And the now-celebrated essay on the sexual pleasures of spanking, which caused a sensation when it was first published in "The New Yorker," is Merkin at her best -- bold, bracingly intelligent, richly entertaining, illuminating the often tragicomic secrets that are the true story of how we live now.