Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir
Book by Margo Jefferson
DETAILS
Publisher : Pantheon (April 12, 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 208 pages ISBN-10 : 152474817X ISBN-13 : 978-1524748173 Item Weight : 11.2 ounces Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches Best Sellers Rank: #21,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6 in Women Writers in Women Studies #83 in Black & African American Biographies #677 in Memoirs (Books) , CARNEGIE MEDAL FINALIST • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From "one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings ) comes a memoir "as electric as the title suggests" (Maggie Nelson, author of On Freedom ). The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson has lived in the thrall of a cast of others—her parents and maternal grandmother, jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes, and stars. These are the figures who thrill and trouble her, and who have made up her sense of self as a person and as a writer. In her much-anticipated follow-up to Negroland , Jefferson brings these figures to life in a memoir of stunning originality, a performance of the elements that comprise and occupy the mind of one of our foremost critics. In Constructing a Nervous System , Jefferson shatters her self into pieces and recombines them into a new and vital apparatus on the page, fusing the criticism that she is known for, fragments of the family members she grieves for, and signal moments from her life, as well as the words of those who have peopled her past and accompanied her in her solitude, dramatized here like never before. Bing Crosby and Ike Turner are among the author’s alter egos. The sounds of a jazz LP emerge as the intimate and instructive sounds of a parent’s voice. W. E. B. Du Bois and George Eliot meet illicitly. The muscles and movements of a ballerina are spliced with those of an Olympic runner, becoming a template for what a black female body can be. The result is a wildly innovative work of depth and stirring beauty. It is defined by fractures and dissonance, longing and ecstasy, and a persistent searching. Jefferson interrogates her own self as well as the act of writing memoir, and probes the fissures at the center of American cultural life. Read more
REVIEW
This is one of the most beautifully written memoirs I've read and will certainly be on my favorites list for many years to come! A truly captivating story about jazz, art, writing, and teaching. I found myself not wanting to put it down so that I could savor the scenes.
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