Here's a bit about the book:
A decade of chronic pain has been the
creative catalyst for writer Stephanie de Montalk’s latest book, a memoir
called How Does It Hurt?
De Montalk has suffered from intractable
pelvic pain as the result of nerve damage following a fall in 2003. Her
condition is obscure and at the time of her accident treatment was only
available in the USA and France. In 2004 de Montalk travelled to France for
surgery even though relief was not guaranteed. Over the past decade her pain
has worsened.
Despite the constant pain she was in, she
wrote a novel and two books of poetry during this period. She says the idea of
writing a memoir first came to her in 2008, but she shied away from writing
about pain at first.
“Society demands stoicism, and in this
respect I found that while it was acceptable to talk about acute or temporary
pain, to mention constant pain evokes disinterest and suggestions of
exaggeration. It also is difficult to write about pain plainly, because of its
resistance to verbal expression.”
She says that the nineteenth century French
writer Alphonse Daudet’s account of his own pain consoled and influenced her.
“Through Daudet, I found it became acceptable
to write about severe and continuing pain.”
In the end she found herself using a ‘hybrid’
form of writing, encompassing personal essay, memoir, poetry and critical
analysis, to describe her experience with pain.
“I put my study into a personal narrative
because I didn’t want it to feel imagined or removed. I’d been bolstered by the
frank presence and emotional closeness of some of the pain memoirists I’d read.
These were writers who could say with unassailable conviction, ‘this is how
pain is for me; this is the truth of the matter.’ I wanted to write something
as immediate, that a reader on the cliff face of pain could cling to, or a
bystander would feel drawn to.”
De Montalk has had a varied career as a
nurse, documentary filmmaker and writer. How
Does It Hurt? is her seventh book and was written for her PhD in Creative
Writing programme through the International Institute of Modern Letters.
“I made an early decision to interweave the
critical and creative components of the PhD, instead of presenting them
separately. I wanted to take myself and my readers on a journey of discovery.
The support I received from my supervisors, the staff and students at the IIML
went beyond my expectations.”
How
Does It Hurt? by Stephanie de Montalk is available for purchase in our online bookstore or in good bookstores nationwide. Hardback,
$40.
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