This Is the Door

Name: This Is the Door (eBook)
Brand: HarperCollins
SKU: 359997
Price: 14.99 USD
Availability: OnlineOnly

This Is the Door

The Body, Pain, and Faith

Darcey Steinke

Sample

Buy for US $14.99

Description

Darcey Steinke, acclaimed author of Flash Count Diary and Suicide Blonde, explores the world of pain for those who suffer and those who love them.

One-fifth of Americans live in chronic pain. In some form—chronic or temporary, corporal or emotional—pain is a state we will all endure.

Darcey Steinke gets to the heart of pain with her usual brilliance, humor, and empathy. In chapters that trace the body—The Spine, The Heart, The Knees, and more—she takes sufferers into the understandings of pain through history, philosophy, religion, pop culture, and reporter human experience. Steinke takes readers under the knife, through the archives, and across oceans. She interviews working physicians, analyzes the writings of Frida Kahlo, recounts her own back surgery, and journeys to Lourdes, where she finds herself invited to help.

Taking on a subject relevant to us all—whether we are hurting or know someone who is—This Is the Door illuminates the experience of pain and its myriad effects on the body, mind, and soul. For readers of Joan Didion, C. S. Lewis, Sheila Heti, and Leslie Jamison, it is destined to become a classic.

Genres

Pages288

Released2026

LanguageEnglish

PublisherHarperCollins

ISBN9780063289185

SellerHarperCollins

About the author(s)

Darcey Steinke is the author of multiple nonfiction and novels, including her most recent memoir, Flash Count Diary. Her work has been translated into ten languages, and her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, among many others. She has taught at Columbia University School of the Arts, New York University, Princeton University, and the American University of Paris. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

"Full of wisdom both ancient and cutting-edge, Darcey Steinke's glorious This is the Door is part lyrical memoir, part fascinating research project, and wholly comforting for anyone grappling with questions of what it means to suffer and to love." — Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Can't Sleep and Also a Poet

"This Is the Door leads us on a sacred journey. It is a book about pain and the body and all the stuff we necessarily call 'holy.' It is beautiful, and thoughtful, and learned, and funny. It is inspired. Read it, and find yourself in its rare and manifest waters." — Scott Cheshire, author of High as the Horses' Bridles