"An intricately constructed and emotionally devastating book about the appearance and disappearance of love." --Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation
In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection--with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure....
"An intricately constructed and emotionally devastating book about the appearance and disappearance of love." --Jenny Offill, author of Dept....
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring...
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intima...