Body Geographic (American Lives)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.18 (743 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0803239858 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 272 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-10-23 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
“Maps are less actualities than acts of discernment Mapping is the art of making out some new and more accurate self that I hadn’t made out before.” The “alabaster city” of her hometown, Chicago, and Minneapolis, a port of entry into a new life, are her defining geographic coordinates. Illustrated by vintage maps, Borich’s literary voyage embraces “those monsters on the old maps” that “suggest the ways wonder and injury might inhabit the same seas,” and one life. Her immigrant roots, her youthful longings, her coming-out, and her present life as a lesbian are the subjects of powerful essays in which glimpses of the past generate an evocative physical and psychic synthesis. --Whitney Scott . From Booklist Borich’s memoir creates a Midwest where her body and the landscape intersect—a unique literar
Between Chicago and Minneapolis Borich maps her own Midwest, a true heartland in which she measures the distance between the dreams and realities of her own life, her family’s, and her fellow travelers’ in the endless American migration. Covering rough terrain—from the hardships of her immigrant ancestors to the travails of her often-drunk young self, longing to be madly awake in the world, from the changing demographics of midwestern cities to the personal transformations of coming out and living as a lesbian—Body Geographic is cartography of high literary or
Rachael T. Hanel said A sensual delight. Body Geographic by Barrie Jean Borich is a sensual delight, an earthy contemplation of the relationship of place to body. Our bodies are maps--where past and current lovers have tread, the scars that hold narratives, both secret and not secret.Borich incorporates the stories of her great-grandparents, her grandparents, her parents, and herself, where they all have journeyed and how that made them into the people they are. She takes us to Croatia, California, Florida, New Orleans, but lingering most on Minneapolis, where she's spent "A sensual delight" according to Rachael T. Hanel. Body Geographic by Barrie Jean Borich is a sensual delight, an earthy contemplation of the relationship of place to body. Our bodies are maps--where past and current lovers have tread, the scars that hold narratives, both secret and not secret.Borich incorporates the stories of her great-grandparents, her grandparents, her parents, and herself, where they all have journeyed and how that made them into the people they are. She takes us to Croatia, California, Florida, New Orleans, but lingering most on Minneapolis, where she's spent 25 years, and her beloved Chicago, where she was born and raised.Borich is . 5 years, and her beloved Chicago, where she was born and raised.Borich is . Absorbing, Intimate, and Elegant Memoir At once intimate, personal, and philosophical, this memoir is a hybrid, full of short to medium length meditative essays, mapping out life, love, and migrations. I teach nonfiction prose at the university level, and I can't wait to study this book with my students, lower division and upper division alike. There is a lot to learn here, about form, about place, and about writing. I was absorbed from page one to the end of the acknowledgments. Highly recommend.