The Vulture Girl: Necessary and Sufficient Conditions
A speculative memoir in experimental poetry, "the vulture girl" begins with the odd allegation of the author's mother that the she had been (unbeknownst to her) born a twin. This begins a line of introspection that introduces the reader to a handful of inner guardians who live outside of linear time. A chapter for each: twin, rabbit, old stag, little wing, vulture, fawn, and tornado, these have protected and continue to protect the author, aka "the girl." Over the course of the book, they, and her search for them, help her to repair and reintegrate traumatic childhood experiences presented in fragmented narratives.
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
"How do we organize our 'residual genetics' to form a raw or emergent humanity? Deploying feral subjectivities, Carrie Nassif attends to questions of trauma and healing, with particular attention to the protection and care afforded by entities as various as the moon and a stag. the vulture girl depicts bodies at the limits of what they can tolerate, with an emphasis, also, on the importance of rest Whether this corollary or spacious potential is speculative (hoped-for) or built (present in the text) was, for me, though it might not be for you, the hope of this book."
-Bhanu Kapil
"Reading Carrie Nassif's first collection, I am present with the terrors that follow from a real childhood to a real motherhood. I am overwhelmed with the heartbreak of remembering them. If the vulture girl: necessary and sufficient conditions is not healing these heartbreaks, then it is acknowledging the complications that the past most certainly holds. That acknowledgement overflows with so much love. There is a balance in this book, between control and wilderness, vigilance and surrender, witness and wielded magic. Some moments a mythology, others a fable or legend. Even in its most contemporary images, the timeless is carved."
-Haley Lasché
![The Bean Book: 100 Recipes for Cooking with All Kinds of Beans, from the Rancho Gordo Kitchen [A Cookbook]](https://images-us.bookshop.org/ingram/9781984860002.jpg?height=250&v=v2-7400cb3badc696c5c26291bab7b06b47)
