Description
"[One of] the reigning mother superiors of the crowd [is] Bee Lavender." --Time Magazine
Diagnosed with cancer at age twelve and perilously pregnant at eighteen, surviving surgeries and violent accidents: sometimes you can't believe Bee Lavender is still alive; sometimes you think nothing could kill her. Lessons in Taxidermy is Lavender's fierce and expressive search for truth and an elusive sense of safety. This autobiographical tale is stark and resolved, but strangely euphoric, tying together moments and memories into a frantic, delicate, and often transcendently funny account of anguish and confusion, pain and poverty, isolation and illusion. While staying conscious of the particulars of her circumstances, Lavender frames her life in the context of history, traveling, landscape, and freak show culture. Lessons in Taxidermy is apocryphal, troubling, cathartic, and important.
Product Details
| Publisher | Akashic Books, Ltd. |
| Publish Date | April 01, 2005 |
| Pages | 225 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781888451795 |
| Dimensions | 7.6 X 5.3 X 0.5 inches | 0.3 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
Bee Lavender--writer, activist, mother of two--is definitely hot. She is the very embodiment of extreme motherhood.-- "Borders.com"
Bee's scrupulous, non-histrionic style is thrilling; it allows for some devastating emotional moments because the author comes by them honestly.--Ayun Halliday, author of No Touch Monkey
Lavender . . . holds nothing back as she recounts her life spent in and out of hospitals and her subsequent dissociation from her own body and emotions. She struggles with health problems from birth, which are compounded by her surroundings, including frequent encounters with street fights, domestic violence and poverty. Her voice is as strong as the front she puts up for the multitude of doctors she sees, and it's hard not to be in awe of what one fragile human being can withstand in the course of such a short lifetime . . . witnessing her strength and sheer determination to live makes this striking book completely engrossing.-- "Publishers Weekly, Starred Review"
Stunning: oblique yet heart-wrenching details.-- "Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to Pop Culture"
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