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A Different Kind of Story Telling

Are you looking for a different kind of book? Are you drawn to authors who take a different approach to writing that perhaps you have not experienced before.

Here is one of these type of books. Constructing a Nervous System, 2022. This is a memoir written by the award-winning critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson.

According to the New York Times (NYT), this book is a companion to another book which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2016, titled Negroland, (which I have not read). The NYT points out that the ‘nervous system’ the author references in the title is “referring not to anatomical fibers and cells but to the materials — ‘chosen, imposed, inherited, made up’ — that jumble together into an identity.”

I have only read a few pages, but I already know this book will be interesting. The creative writing style is what is most drawing me to it.

It is a difficult book to read. You really have to focus to not loose track of what is going on.

The author utilized literature, art, poetry, culture, race, history, among other things, to express thoughts, interpretations, and reflections, all the while, narrating captivating personal stories.

Image used for this page is of the book cover.

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