{"product_id":"under-my-bed-and-other-essays-paperback-softback-9781496230478","title":"Under My Bed and Other Essays (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496230478","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eUnder My Bed and Other Essays\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJody Keisner (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496230478\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 September 2022\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e240 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\"Keisner debuts with a riveting essay collection that revisits her painful past. . . . The essays attack difficult material straight on, but Keisner's smart, clear, and incisive writing cuts deep.\"-\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"In her luminous new collection, \u003ci\u003eUnder My Bed and Other Essays\u003c\/i\u003e, Keisner interrogates fear-personal and collective-from one sharp angle after the next, with a special acuity for the fears known best by women and mothers.\"-Jeannine Ouellette, \u003ci\u003eBrevity's Blog\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"As she faces her worries head on, Keisner grants herself-and her readers-access to the deeper, more sustaining forces that underlie our anxieties: attachment, devotion, joy, and an exquisite awareness of the preciousness of life. What we most fear, her writing reminds us, reveals what we most treasure. The greatest triumph of \u003ci\u003eUnder My Bed and Other Essays\u003c\/i\u003e is how masterfully Keisner captures this inescapable tension.\"-Nicole Graev Lipson, \u003ci\u003eHippocampus Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eUnder My Bed\u003c\/i\u003e is a tender book, an honest book, and a rich tale of learning to thrive just as we are-flawed and imperfect, yet still fully capable of risking both growth and love.\"-Susan J. Tweit, \u003ci\u003eStory Circle Network\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"Ultimately, it is women who heal other women. The author's grandmother's parting advice to her is, 'Don’t be afraid.' With these essays, Jody Keisner both enumerates the many reasons women should be afraid and the many ways grace and strength carry them past that fear and onto empowerment.\"-Alice Stephens, \u003ci\u003eWashington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"Keisner's book shows how we can pull the proverbial boogeyman out from under the bed and, by naming it, remove its power over us.\"-Elizabeth Fiala, \u003ci\u003eAdroit Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eUnder My Bed\u003c\/i\u003e offers a complex, compelling, and multi-faceted look at the origins of fear, motherhood, and forgiveness.\"-Emily Webber, merliterary.com\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"Keisner expertly braids together her life's stories with research to guide readers through the immediate experience of fear as well as the effort to reckon with it.\"-Whitney (Walters) Jacobson, \u003ci\u003eSplit Rock Review\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e\"This well-written and insightful book is for anyone who wonders how to confront fear for themselves, their children, or women in general. Told with compassion and curiosity, it will also appeal to anyone overcoming chronic disease or parental bullying.\"-Sandra Hager Eliason, \u003ci\u003eRain Taxi\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“Vulnerable and smart, thoughtful and thought-provoking, gorgeously written and poignantly tender, \u003ci\u003eUnder My Bed and Other Essays \u003c\/i\u003eshines a light into darkness and shows us all the messy glories of what it means to be human.”-Randon Billings Noble, editor of \u003ci\u003eA Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eJody Keisner was raised in rural Nebraska towns by a volatile father and kind but passive mother. As a young adult living alone for the first time, she began a nighttime ritual of checking under her bed each night, not sure who she was afraid of finding. An intruder? A monster? Her father? Keisner’s fears mature as she becomes a wife and mother, and the boogeyman under the bed shape-shifts, though its shapes are no less frightening-a young aunt’s drowning, the “chest chomp” in the classic horror movie \u003ci\u003eThe Thing\u003c\/i\u003e, a diagnosis of a chronic autoimmune disease, the murder of a young college student, an eccentric grandmother’s belief in reincarnation and her dying advice: “Don’t be afraid.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eUnder My Bed and Other Essays\u003c\/i\u003e, Jody Keisner searches for the roots of the violence and fear that afflict women, starting with the working-class midwestern family she was adopted into and ending with her own experience of mothering daughters. In essays both literary and experimental, Keisner illustrates the tension between the illusion of safety, our desire for control, and our struggle to keep the things we fear from reaching out and pulling us under.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePreface\u003cbr\u003e Part 1. Origins\u003cbr\u003e Under My Bed\u003cbr\u003e Recreationally Terrified\u003cbr\u003e Fracture\u003cbr\u003e The Secret of Water\u003cbr\u003e Firebreaks\u003cbr\u003e Haunted\u003cbr\u003e Part 2. Under the Skin\u003cbr\u003e The Maternal Lizard Brain\u003cbr\u003e Neural Pathways to Love\u003cbr\u003e Body Language\u003cbr\u003e Side Effects\u003cbr\u003e Part 3. Risings\u003cbr\u003e My Grandmother and the Sleeping Prophet\u003cbr\u003e In-Between\u003cbr\u003e Runaway Daughter\u003cbr\u003e Woman Running Alone\u003cbr\u003e Gratitude\u003cbr\u003e Selected Bibliography\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52600017223960,"sku":"9781496230478","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/under-my-bed-and-other-essays-paperback-softback-9781496230478","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}