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Run Towards the Danger
Run Towards the Danger
Confrontations with a Body of Memory
by Sarah Polley
“A visceral and incisive collection of six propulsive personal essays.” —Vanity Fair
*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club * New York Times Paperback Row*
From the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Women Talking and the acclaimed director and actor Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present
These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.
In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing. Each of these six essays captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance.”
Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger.
*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club * New York Times Paperback Row*
From the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Women Talking and the acclaimed director and actor Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present
These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.
In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing. Each of these six essays captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance.”
Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger.
“A visceral and incisive collection of six propulsive personal essays.” —Vanity Fair
*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club * New York Times Paperback Row*
From the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Women Talking and the acclaimed director and actor Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present
These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.
In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing. Each of these six essays captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance.”
Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger.
*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club * New York Times Paperback Row*
From the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Women Talking and the acclaimed director and actor Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present
These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.
In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing. Each of these six essays captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance.”
Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger.
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Sarah Polley's essays hit so hard that this listener didn't--at first--notice that she extracts volumes of feeling from every word. A voice this agile would make music of the tax code. Instead, she tells personal stories that would enthrall even without the successes about which this Canadian star of stage and screen never pauses to boast. When she was a child actor being raised by childish adults, her costumes had to be custom-made to disguise the disfigurement of extreme scoliosis. Not bad enough? A fire extinguisher fell on her head. Severely disabled, she found a doctor who told her not to coddle her traumatized brain but to challenge it. This she did and returned to health. "Run towards the danger," she tells us and toes the starting line again. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
