Overview

In this “uncommonly wonderful collection of essays” (Rain Taxi), Molly McCully Brown explores living within and beyond the limits of a body—one shaped since birth by cere- bral palsy, a permanent and often painful movement disorder Throughout the book (which now includes an essay on Seamus Heaney, Notre Dame, and the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic), Brown constellates the subjects that define her inside and out: a disabled and conspicuous body, a religious conversion, a missing twin, a life in poetry.

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9780892555383

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...searing and ineffable... Brown's essays can feel like a punch in the gut, but they are beautiful, nevertheless.-- Booklist (Starred) Brown eloquently, often wittily describes a mostly wheelchair-bound life lived with pain and the places, emotional and physical, to which she has traveled. [Her identical twin] Frances died [in] less than two days . . . and Brown was stricken with cerebral palsy. . . . Memories of her dead sister haunt every page of this powerful book, as does the ominous ticking of her lifetime survival-rate clock. . . .Brown is a writer to watch. . . .Heartfelt and wrenching.-- Kirkus Reviews (Starred) I want to press this book into the hands of everyone I know. Writing from the locus of her own constantly changing, often intractable body, Molly McCully Brown captures the fullness of the human experience -- desire, loss, flesh, faith, poetry, place, memory -- with lyric compression and expansive grace. Reading these exquisite essays made me want to get out and do something with my own body -- kneel at an altar and recite the Hail Mary, stub out a cigarette in Bologna, stand on a hilltop and shout expletives at the Trump administration. Which is to say, these are urgent, compelling essays that remind us how to be fully alive inside our own bodies, wherever we take them.--Jamie Quatro, author of Fire Sermon and I Want to Show You More These remarkable essays invite us to look long and hard at our own interior landscapes, and to negotiate exterior ones with as much grace and gratitude as we can muster.--Eliza Griswold, author of Amity & Prosperity, winner of the Pulitzer Prize Poet Brown (The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded) explores living with cerebral palsy in her fine prose debut ... Brown's work leaves readers with a lyrical look at living within the confines of the body.-- Publishers Weekly

""Brown eloquently, often wittily describes a mostly wheelchair-bound life lived with pain and the places, emotional and physical, to which she has traveled. [Her identical twin] Frances died [in] less than two days . . . and Brown was stricken with cerebral palsy. . . . Memories of her dead sister haunt every page of this powerful book, as does the ominous ticking of her lifetime survival-rate clock. . . .Brown is a writer to watch. . . .Heartfelt and wrenching."" -- Kirkus Reviews (Starred) ""Poet Brown (The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded) explores living with cerebral palsy in her fine prose debut … Brown’s work leaves readers with a lyrical look at living within the confines of the body."" -- Publishers Weekly ""...searing and ineffable... Brown's essays can feel like a punch in the gut, but they are beautiful, nevertheless."" -- Booklist (Starred) ""I want to press this book into the hands of everyone I know. Writing from the locus of her own constantly changing, often intractable body, Molly McCully Brown captures the fullness of the human experience — desire, loss, flesh, faith, poetry, place, memory — with lyric compression and expansive grace. Reading these exquisite essays made me want to get out and do something with my own body — kneel at an altar and recite the Hail Mary, stub out a cigarette in Bologna, stand on a hilltop and shout expletives at the Trump administration. Which is to say, these are urgent, compelling essays that remind us how to be fully alive inside our own bodies, wherever we take them."" -- Jamie Quatro, author of ""Fire Sermon"" and ""I Want to Show You More"" ""These remarkable essays invite us to look long and hard at our own interior landscapes, and to negotiate exterior ones with as much grace and gratitude as we can muster."" -- Eliza Griswold, author of ""Amity & Prosperity,"" winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Brown eloquently, often wittily describes a mostly wheelchair-bound life lived with pain and the places, emotional and physical, to which she has traveled. [Her identical twin] Frances died [in] less than two days . . . and Brown was stricken with cerebral palsy. . . . Memories of her dead sister haunt every page of this powerful book, as does the ominous ticking of her lifetime survival-rate clock. . . .Brown is a writer to watch. . . .Heartfelt and wrenching. -- Kirkus Reviews (Starred) Poet Brown (The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded) explores living with cerebral palsy in her fine prose debut ... Brown's work leaves readers with a lyrical look at living within the confines of the body. -- Publishers Weekly ...searing and ineffable... Brown's essays can feel like a punch in the gut, but they are beautiful, nevertheless. -- Booklist (Starred) I want to press this book into the hands of everyone I know. Writing from the locus of her own constantly changing, often intractable body, Molly McCully Brown captures the fullness of the human experience - desire, loss, flesh, faith, poetry, place, memory - with lyric compression and expansive grace. Reading these exquisite essays made me want to get out and do something with my own body - kneel at an altar and recite the Hail Mary, stub out a cigarette in Bologna, stand on a hilltop and shout expletives at the Trump administration. Which is to say, these are urgent, compelling essays that remind us how to be fully alive inside our own bodies, wherever we take them. -- Jamie Quatro, author of Fire Sermon and I Want to Show You More These remarkable essays invite us to look long and hard at our own interior landscapes, and to negotiate exterior ones with as much grace and gratitude as we can muster. -- Eliza Griswold, author of Amity & Prosperity, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Author Information

Molly McCully Brown received her MFA from the University of Mississippi, and is a graduate of Stanford University and Simon’s Rock of Bard College. She has published poems in Gulf Coast, Image, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere; Her Essay ""The Broken Country"" from Places I've Taken My Body was pick for the Best American Essays of 2021 publication (HMH Books).

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