Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir

Poet and essayist Sánchez (Lessons on Expulsion) tallies the “triumphs, disappointments, delights, and resurrections” of her life in this raw and sensuous memoir in essays. Since coming into the world as a “suicidal fetus” (“My umbilical cord almost strangled me when I was born”), Sánchez has experienced despair and wonder intensely. These dueling states become the through line to lyrical musings that, though blunt in their candor (“I called a suicide hotline, but no one answered, which I didn’t know was a thing”), are leavened by the author’s great wit and compassion. The daughter of working-class Mexican immigrants, Sánchez recounts befuddled and enlightening escapades—including succumbing to sexual urges “after battling a yeast infection” during her Fulbright year in Spain (in the aptly titled “The Year My Vagina Broke”), and combating depression with electroconvulsive therapy. In “Down to Clown,” she muses on humor as a way to cope with being marginalized—“oppressed people, without question, are always the funniest”—while “Difficult Sun” strikes a heart-wrenching chord in its reckoning with an abortion she had at age 34: “I’ve been a writer for most of my life, and words fail me here.” Even when Sánchez finds happiness and its traditional markers (successful writing career, husband, child, home), her writing shines with a deep humility wrought from the hard-won nature of her personal peace. The result is another satisfying addition to Sánchez’s deeply moving body of works. (July)