"A passionate and often radical novel of ideas that affords all the old-fashioned pleasures of a traditional historical novel."-"-The New York Times"
"A great novel. It repeatedly scales heights of complex thought, passion, and expression that few American writers ever approach, while reimagining a majestic love story in dazzling style."--"Philadelphia Inquirer"
"A panoramic, passionately feminist examination of the changing shape of Western civilization since the Age of Enlightenment. Sontag's book is a sweeping, exquisitely detailed picture of Europe in the final decades of the eighteenth century."--"Chicago Sun-Times"
"A slippery, intelligent, provocative, and gripping book."--"The Washington Post Book World"
"A novel Susan Sontag was destined to write, a shift from the moral intelligence of the essayist to the intelligent heart of the novelist. To her admirers, the novel will only confirm her originality, and perhaps win over a whole new set of readers. For" The Volcano Lover" is not just a thinking woman's (or man's) historical romance but a sly, luminously insightful, provocative novel."--"The Nation"
"A brilliant performance."--"Chicago Tribune"