Shift, by Penny Guisinger and My Withered Legs, by Sandra Gail Lambert
Literary gems from university presses
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I’m beginning to really appreciate university presses. They first landed on my radar last year when Duke University came out with Running by Lindsey A. Freeman. In last month’s review, I highlighted The Only Way Through is Out by Suzette Mullen. And fans of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Jacksonville native Deesha Philyaw may not realize this National Book Award finalist published her collection of short stories with West Virginia University Press.
University presses are known for their high publishing standards and their ability to take chances on fresh perspectives that have not yet gained wider attention. This month, I’m thrilled to highlight two new releases I can’t recommend enough.
Shift: A Memoir of Identity and Other Illusions, by Penny Guisinger
What does it feel like to step off the edge of everything you’ve ever known? Acclaimed for her flash nonfiction in Postcards from Here: A Memoir in Vignettes, Penny Guisinger is back with Shift, an emotional and literary masterpiece out with University of Nebraska Press.
Readers who admire Jeannine Ouellette’s style of writing in The Part That Burns will love this memoir. Like Ouellette, Guisinger spends less time telling the surface events of her life (marrying a man, becoming a parent, and later falling in love with a woman) and focuses more on using metaphor and detail to evoke curiosity and feeling.
How does one rally the courage to blow up a life in the throes of raising young children? Guisinger’s story of a dying newborn mouse conveys potent similarities to the conflict she experiences in taking action around her ailing marriage and family. Her grief is palpable. At the same time, her prose about falling for a woman is intoxicating, as is the mind-blowing shift into the new life they create together.
The overall structure of the book is brilliant. Like the impossible Penrose triangle she describes toward the end, I didn’t comprehend the shape while I was reading because I was so immersed in the feeling of it all. By the end of the book, I could look back and see the intentional construction. This is one I want to read again.
My Withered Legs and Other Essays, by Sandra Gail Lambert
I so enjoyed this collection of essays on love, nature, aging, creativity, activism, and more, out from The University of Georgia Press. With the added lens of queerness and disability, the author shares potent insights into the necessity of caregiving between parent and child and even romantic partners.
Her stoic kayaking trip down the Myakka River rang especially true and vivid. As a fellow Floridian, I’ve retreated in terror from those same alligator-infested waters.
I also appreciated getting a window into the author’s writing life. She sticks the landing in her final whirlwind of an essay on health complications and the much anticipated release of her 2018 memoir, A Certain Loneliness, which came out from University of Nebraska Press. This was a pleasure to read, and I’ll continue to drop in on this author at her Substack.