Back Talk:: Teaching Lost Selves to Speak

Due to a herniated disc, Weimer, a professor of English at Drew University, was told that she must take a year's leave from teaching to be encased in a restrictive back brace. In this powerful memoir, she describes the contrast between her usually hectic life and enforced inactivity--which eventually provided her with the leisure to examine how overscheduling has excused her from self-knowledge. Although unable to continue writing a scholarly study of Constance Fenimore Woolson, a 19th-century novelist, she finds herself sympathizing with the spiritual aspects of Woolson's life that Weimer, an agnostic, had before rejected. Her desire to better understand Woolson's suicide results in an inward journey that takes Weimer back to her own childhood and yields insights into her relationships with her husband and grown children. Ultimately, Weimer turns a year of pain and fear into an opportunity for growth. (July)