This Is the Door

In This is the Door, Darcey Steinke gets to the heart of pain with her celebrated insight and empathy. With chapters that trace the contours of a body – spine, knees, skin and more – she considers how we make sense of pain through history, philosophy, religion, popular culture and personal experience.

Steinke takes readers under the knife, through the archives and across oceans; she walks the tightrope between suffering and ecstasy. She interviews working physicians, analyses the writings of Frida Kahlo, recalls her own back surgery and travels to Lourdes. Her journey reveals a series of questions. Does pain educate? Is pain always a physical experience of negation? What can we learn from wounding, from winnowing, from the stillness, the de-creation that intense pain brings? Does pain obliterate the sufferer but also somehow re-create them? Is it possible to be created a second time?

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: its myriad and transformative effects on the body, mind and soul. It is a singular study of our corporeal limits that is destined to become a classic.

Author Biography

Darcey Steinke is the author of multiple works of nonfiction and novels, including her most recent memoir, Flash Count Diary. Her books have been translated into ten languages and her nonfiction has appeared widely, including in the The Times, the New York Times and Paris Review. She has taught at Columbia University, New York University and the American University of Paris. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn.

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