Overview
An invigorating, continuously surprising book about the serious nature of laughter.
Laughter shakes us out of our deadness. An outburst of spontaneous laughter is an eruption from the unconscious that, like political resistance, poetry, or self-revelation, expresses a provocative, impish drive to burst free from external constraints. Taking laughterās revelatory capacity as a starting point, and rooted in Nuar Alsadirās experience as a poet and psychoanalyst, Animal Joy seeks to recover the sensation of being present and embodied. Writing in a poetic, associative style, blending the personal with the theoretical, Alsadir ranges from her experience in clown school, Anna Kareninaās morphine addiction, Freudās un-Freudian behaviors, marriage brokers and war brokers, to āNot Jokes,ā Abu Ghraib, Frantzās negrophobia, smut, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, laugh tracks, the problem with adjectives, and how poetry can wake us up. At the center of the book, however, is the authorās relationship with her daughters, who erupt into the text like sudden, unexpected laughter. These interventionsāfrank, tender, and always a challenge to the writer and her thinkingāare like tiny revolutions, pointedly showing the dangers of being severed from oneās true self and hinting at ways one might be called back to it.
A bold and insatiably curious prose debut, Animal Joy is an ode to spontaneity and feeling alive.
This book title, Animal Joy (A Book of Laughter and Resuscitation), ISBN: 9781644450932, by Nuar Alsadir, published by Graywolf Press (August 2, 2022) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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