somehow, all books are about the body. no one lives apart from their own, so no writer, speaker, or character exists completely removed from the both fragile and indispensable fact of a corporeal existence. stories are lived in bodies and made in them; language itself is created in breath and muscle, in gesture, contraction, release. I could list hundreds of books that draw on rich traditions of disease writing; disability; gender; the race; desire, policy; paternity; daughter; to live; and dying, all of them anchored in our bodies.
But instead, here are 10, across genres, styles, and periods, that influenced the writing of my book, places I’ve taken my body, and the way of life that led me to it. every list inevitably leaves something out, but I trust these 10 books will lead you to a thousand more.
You are reading: Books about the body
1. mary shelley’s frankensteinwhen victor frankenstein’s mother dies, he goes to college occupied with the “deeper mysteries of creation”, intending to learn how to make a living thing , so you can combat loss, death and decay. he stitches up a man with salvaged parts and then animates the body he has created. but the creature, marvelous in theory, horrifies him once he is alive. the devastation this causes to both the creator and his creature is endless. this is a dark and indispensable book on building and having a body.
2. the body in pain: the making and unmaking of the world by elaine scarry an analysis of physical suffering that ranges from philosophy to medicine, religion to literature and art, the body in pain is a reckoning with the fundamental, inexpressible and inescapable nature of pain. a broad and nuanced study of the ways in which, throughout history, human beings have inflicted and coped with pain, and have worked to articulate and live with and through it. This book is one I return to again and again.
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3. the giant’s house byelizabeth mccrackenthis tender and extraordinary novel about a small town librarian named peggy court and the “too tall” james carlson sweatt, who is six feet at 11 years, then seven, then eight – it’s a love story above all else. but it’s also an examination of the profound ways a body can relate and connect to you, and how you can love a body even when it fails you or someone you love. it is both glorious and painful to be alive: this book knows both in equal measure.
4. poster child by emily rapp black At the most basic level, this is a memoir about growing up as an amputee. Rapp Black’s left foot was amputated at the age of four as a result of a birth defect, and the title refers to his time as a model for the March of Dimes, an American non-profit organization. but the book is really a look at what it means to come of age in a culture that encourages you to despise yourself. Keen and intelligent, this book has been an essential companion for me through both adolescence and adulthood.
5. inseminating the elephant by lucia perillothe poems in this collection are infinitely inventive. beautiful and funny, surprising, inquisitive and ironic, they reject your expectations in the same way that a mortal body does, changing and changing. Perillo had multiple sclerosis, and these poems are informed both indirectly and explicitly by his particular experiences of disability and incarnation. they are also an extraordinary record of love for the world despite its darkness, and of singular and sparse epiphanies: “how immense is drowning when you are the child who drowns.”
6. Sarah Manguso’s Two Kinds of Decadence Slender, strange, and lyrical, this book turns the “disease narrative” on its head. A record of years spent with a rare and deeply unpredictable blood disorder, the book articulates an experience of illness not in the temporal or linguistic standpoint of recovery, but in the language, form, and timescale of the experience. disease itself. this is a difficult, beautiful and absolutely unique book.
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7. a guide for relative strangers by camille t dungydungy is a poet, and this collection of essays (travelogue, memoir, and cultural study) moves forward with a poet’s demanding attention as he sweeps across history and landscapes to explore motherhood, femininity, writing and the natural world. Concerned with the particular vulnerability and power of living in a black body, he is a masterclass in dealing with the many ways our bodies shape us and accompany us everywhere.
8. Ada Lemon’s Carriage A collection of poems about motherhood and infertility, aging and pain, ecstasy and the breaking of the body, and the brutal, ecstatic, animalistic force of desire, this book is crystal clear and clear enough beautiful to break your heart: “well then, / I’ll take it… I’ll take it all.”
9. heavy: an american memoir by kiese laymonthere are all sorts of ways to characterize this book. a memoir about race and health, devotion and abuse. A story about growing up the black son of a single mother in Jackson, Mississippi. a book that unblinkingly interrogates the intersections between systemic and individual violence. a love letter. a bloodshed. an invocation, apology and rebuke. all of them are true, and all of them are insufficient. heavy is a beautiful and difficult compromise with the weight or weights that our bodies carry, conjure, handle and resist.
10. teratology by susannah nevisona collection of poetry rooted in a series of birth defects affecting the author’s legs and feet, and a lifetime of surgeries, nevison’s book is an act of mythmaking , meaning and survival. “If your daughter is born / and her legs are not made / to stand”, the collection begins, and an extraordinary world unfolds.
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places i’ve taken my molly mccully brown body published by faber. To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com.
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