Caroline Blackwood (1931-1996) was born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family and was famous for much of her life largely on account of her flamboyantly bohemian existence, not to mention her tumultuous marriages to the painter Lucian Freud, the pianist and composer Israel Citkowitz, and the poet Robert Lowell. Taking up writing in middle age, she soon demonstrated that hers was a mind as brilliant and ruthless as any of the men for whom she'd served as "muse," producing reportage, fiction, biography, and even a cookbook. Heidi Julavits is the author of four critically acclaimed novels and is co-editor, with Sheila Heti and Leanne Shapton, of the New York Times bestseller Women in Clothes. She's a founding editor of The Believer magazine and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in Manhattan, where she teaches at Columbia University.