Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Dylan Riley was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1971 and teaches sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His other books are Microverses: Observations from a Shattered Present and The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe.A poignant memoir of the felicitous and infelicitous contingencies that shape the course of a life, <i>Perdita</i> testifies to the irreducible uniqueness of each human being, and the power of writing to ensure the survival of the universe they once were.
- Ryan Ruby, author of <i>The Zero and the One</i>,
Eloquent and vivid reflections on the work of mourning.
- Lynne Segal, author of <i>Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care</i>,
Excavates the experience of loss in all its terrible solitude and intimacy.
- Benjamin Kunkel, author of <i>Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis</i>,
In telling the story of learning to love and then learning to grieve, Riley traces a deep human connection that is rare in our fragmented world.
- Sarah Jaffe, author of <i>From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire</i>,
Through rich description...and palpable emotion ... Riley succeeds in his goal of capturing the precise character of his marriage for Eamon's benefit. It's an intimate and indelible elegy.
Publishers Weekly
Precision is what makes <i>Perdita</i>, throughout its 192 pages, both so endearing and so heartbreaking ... a text of great generosity and warmth.
- Lamorna Ash, Telegraph
Riley describes cancer, Perdita's central antagonist, as a pitiless opponent, draining hope of its power and reducing it to self-delusion. Its course forces a progressive foreshortening of time. Next year might be terrible, but there can be a few good months now; tomorrow will likely be bad, but let's focus on today.
In this memoir, the disease provokes a broader set of reflections on the openness, contingency, and pain of the human condition, a status defined by the context of mortality, both our own and that of those we love.
For readers of Illness as Metaphor, The Cancer Journals and The Undying.
,Author has media profile in US and UK - interviews in the Nation and New Statesman.