num_pages: 304
description: Stielstra is a masterful essayist. Roxane Gay author of Bad Feminist and Hunger From an important new writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear creativity art faith academia the Internet and justice. In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both personal and universal as she grapples toward a better way to live. In her titular piece The Wrong Way To Save Your Life she answers the question of what has value in our livesa question no longer rhetorical when the apartment above her familys goes up in flames. Here is My Heart sheds light on Megans close relationship with her father whose continued insistence on climbing mountains despite a series of heart attacks leads the author to dissect deer hearts in a poetic attempt to interrogate her own feelings about mortality. Whether she's imagining the implications of open-carry laws on college campuses recounting the story of going underwater on the mortgage of her first home or revealing the unexpected pains and joys of marriage and motherhood Stielstra's work informs impels enlightens and embraces us all. The result is something beautifulthis story her courage and potentially our own. Intellectually fierce and viscerally intimate Megan Stielstra's voice is witty wise warm and above all achingly human.
language: English
title: The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays
publisher: Harper Perennial