The Solitude of Self: Thinking About Elizabeth Cady Stanton," by Vivian Gornick, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Women may desire to be coddled and sheltered, she told her audience; men may encourage that desire. But in the end, despite family, friends, lovers and allies, each of us is "a solitary voyager. ... Our most bitter disappointments, our brightest hopes and ambitions are known only to ourselves. Alike amid the greatest triumphs and darkest tragedies of life, we walk alone."