Review of A Field Guide for Immersion Writing by Robin Hemley

Robin Hemley has written an excellent book on immersion writing, which he defines as ‘any kind of memoir, travel narrative, or journalistic piece in which the narrative is as much forward-looking as backward, and in which the writer is a part of the story being told’ (8). He writes with humour and passion and injects himself into the prose, thus making for a great example of what he is describing.

Hemley is the director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, as well as author of fiction, non-fiction, memoir, essays and books on writing. His previous, now updated, book on writing is Turning Life Into Fiction.

He loosely classifies each form of immersion writing according to the subcategories of quest, experiment, investigation, reenactment and infiltration. He stresses that these subcategories are not equally important for each form. In a fairly straightforward manner, Hemley addresses each form of immersion writing in the three chapters after the introduction, followed by a chapter on ethical and legal considerations, and one on preparing a proposal.


Continued at M/C Reviews: Culture and the Media.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a strange day. For the first time in weeks I felt as if my whole life was a mistake. A wreck. I was a wreck upon a vast and lonely beach that saw no other life. I moved around the house dragging the seaweed behind me, plucking barnacles from my side. The wood from the old boat of my skeleton was still strong, though, despite its weathered, darkened looks, its splintered touch. And then I turned the page in my diary and saw the remembrance. You had died before seeing me again, just like with your own parents. You were old, yes, but no amount of time and years would have improved our understanding of each other. 

Traffic lights

The man on the bike thought we were laughing at him. He rode on ahead, looking back at us every now and then, talking. We walked on, not sure whether he was talking to himself, or to us, or to his bike, or to an imaginary friend. I am not being facetious, some of us have imaginary friends and have good conversations with them. It's just that some of us also restrict those conversations to private places rather than public ones. Turns out he was talking to himself, but about us. We had simply looked at him before crossing the road, because we didn't know if he was going to turn into that road or not. He took it as an insult. He waited for us at the traffic lights. 

When the light came back

When the light came back, every living thing was gone, except for his workmates. The waiting beasts were no longer waiting. But the dead ones had disappeared as well; even the blood and intestines were gone. He turned to look at the man beside him, whose stupefied expression was directed towards his knife. It was clean and shining as if it had never been used. One came in from outside, shouting, but saw the emptiness and his voice drained away. 'My dogs just disappeared', he said. 'On the back of the ute a second ago.'

Review of Scared Sick by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith Wiley

I cannot recommend Scared Sick highly enough because of its approachable style, clear explanation of complex medical science for the general reader, passionate advocacy for babies and small children, and its importance in encouraging everyone to pay attention to what we are doing to the youngest members of our societies. I was shocked to learn that it was only from the late 1980s that newborns, whether premature or full term, were given anesthesia when operated on for conditions such as heart defects. It was thought the infantile central nervous system was not developed enough for neonates to feel pain, and so they were simply paralyzed for surgery with no pain relief. It seems to take us a long time before we notice the suffering of others, and the effects it has on them. No wonder we are still in the early days of noticing psychological stress and instigating preventative programs and therapies for it.

Continued at Metapsychology Online Reviews.

 

Review of Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays by Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt is fascinated by the brain and mind, and what can go wrong with them. She is also fascinated by fiction, reading, writing, art; she writes with verve, intelligence, and understanding about all these things, and others as well. In her latest collection of essays, she notes the link is her 'abiding curiosity about what it means to be human' (ix), and the reader cannot argue with that conclusion.

In an echo from her previous essay collection, A Plea for Eros, she writes that 'no single theoretical model can contain the complexity of human reality' (x), so her intense interest in Freud and psychoanalysis is a critical one, and interwoven with other interests to form a larger organism.


Continued at Metapsychology Online Reviews.

When

When I went to the fridge to get the milk, the bottle was empty. Okay, I yelled, who's drunk all the milk? No answer, of course, because they're all asleep. Or pretending to be asleep so they don't have to be the first to get the tea ready. Then I noticed there was no butter in the butter dish, and the sausages that were leftovers from yesterday were gone too. Right, who's swiping food from the fridge? I yelled again. I opened the freezer door, and the chicken was gone, along with the chops. The polysterene tray was there, as was the plastic from the chook, but otherwise, gone. Jesus, someone would have to be bloody hungry to eat all that.