Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir
Sonya Lea
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
In the twenty-third year of their marriage, Sonya Lea's husband, Richard, went in for surgery to treat a rare appendix cancer. When he came out, he had no recollection of their life together: how they met, their wedding day, the births of their two children. All of it was gone, along with the rockier parts of their past--her drinking, his anger. Richard could now hardly speak, emote, or create memories from moment to moment. Who he'd been no longer was.Wondering Who You Are braids the story of Sonya and Richard's relationship, those memories that he could no longer conjure, together with his fateful days in the hospital--the internal bleeding, the near-death experience, and eventual traumatic brain injury. It follows the couple through his recovery as they struggle with his treatment, and through a marriage no longer grounded on decades of shared experience. As they build a fresh life together, as Richard develops a new personality, Sonya is forced to question her own assumptions, beliefs, and desires, her place in the marriage and her way of being in the world. With radical candor and honesty, Sonya Lea has written a memoir that is both a powerful look at perseverance in the face of trauma and a surprising exploration into what lies beyond our fragile identities.
Product Details
Price
$15.95
$14.83
Publisher
Tin House Books
Publish Date
July 13, 2015
Pages
336
Dimensions
4.84 X 0.76 X 7.85 inches | 0.81 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781941040072
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Sonya Lea's essays and interviews have appeared in Salon, The Southern Review, Brevity, Cold Mountain Review, Tricycle, The Prentice Hall College Reader, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and excerpts from Wondering Who You Are have received an international memoir prize and an Artist Trust Award. Lea teaches writing at Hugo House in Seattle. She recently directed her first short film, Every Beautiful Thing. Originally from Kentucky, she currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
Reviews
With poetic prose and remarkable candor, lea shares the details of helping her husband regain a sense of purpose...and her own difficult transition.
An engrossing journey of self-discovery and fierce devotion.
Her stunning account of his recovery efforts and her willful refusal to give up on marriage to the stranger occupying her husband's body is fantastically heartfelt and inspiring.
"[A] heartbreakingly honest memoir . . . will touch listeners with its compassion and grace." --Booklist, STARRED
A beautiful writer...
Wondering Who You Are a quietly wrenching memoir that's as much about what makes any of us who we are as it is about Lea's own story.
This meditation on love and loss left me filled with wonder. Sonya Lea considers every possibility--the full span of understanding, from science to shamans to sex--in an effort to rediscover her husband and, in the process, what makes us uniquely human: our memories of who we are. Words like 'honest' and 'intimate' don't even begin to describe this remarkable journey.--Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk: A Story of War
An intense and accomplished memoir . . . This sweet, erotic, wrenching story asks quintessential questions about memory, the constructed self, and love--its challenges and deep compensations.--Priscilla Long, author of The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life
An incredibly intimate and honest memoir, Wondering Who You Are shows more vividly than any work of nonfiction I've read in years the endlessly complex and delicate nature of identity. In particular, the book movingly reveals how mutable all relationships are, how metamorphosis on one side of a partnership necessitates metamorphosis on the other--we are all constantly changing.--Peter Mountford, author of The Dismal Science
Wondering Who Your Are is an amazing accomplishment. Every page sparkles with wisdom, candor, insight, and love.--Chris Ryan - Author of Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
An engrossing journey of self-discovery and fierce devotion.
Her stunning account of his recovery efforts and her willful refusal to give up on marriage to the stranger occupying her husband's body is fantastically heartfelt and inspiring.
"[A] heartbreakingly honest memoir . . . will touch listeners with its compassion and grace." --Booklist, STARRED
A beautiful writer...
In this brave, inspiring memoir she recounts the losses, and what it took to rebuild.
Wondering Who You Are a quietly wrenching memoir that's as much about what makes any of us who we are as it is about Lea's own story.
This meditation on love and loss left me filled with wonder. Sonya Lea considers every possibility--the full span of understanding, from science to shamans to sex--in an effort to rediscover her husband and, in the process, what makes us uniquely human: our memories of who we are. Words like 'honest' and 'intimate' don't even begin to describe this remarkable journey.--Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk: A Story of War
An intense and accomplished memoir . . . This sweet, erotic, wrenching story asks quintessential questions about memory, the constructed self, and love--its challenges and deep compensations.--Priscilla Long, author of The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life
An incredibly intimate and honest memoir, Wondering Who You Are shows more vividly than any work of nonfiction I've read in years the endlessly complex and delicate nature of identity. In particular, the book movingly reveals how mutable all relationships are, how metamorphosis on one side of a partnership necessitates metamorphosis on the other--we are all constantly changing.--Peter Mountford, author of The Dismal Science
Wondering Who Your Are is an amazing accomplishment. Every page sparkles with wisdom, candor, insight, and love.--Chris Ryan - Author of Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
