Heartdusting Fractured Notes from a Feverland

From poet Alex Lemon, a breathtaking collection of essays on life and death, masculinity and identity, love and parenthood, and pain.

As a child, Lemon survived brutal abuse. As a young man, he underwent almost debilitating brain surgery. Those health issues have lingered with him as an adult—and so too has fear. In the essays of Heartdusting, meditations on trepanation and Sophia Loren are haunted by the questions that have shaped Lemon’s life. What scars, emotional and physical, are left behind by the injuries of our lives? How do we move forward when trapped between the demons of our past and the angels of our better nature? In the process, Heartdusting blooms into a fascinating, headlong experiment in how to write about trauma.

Intimate and intensely felt, lending bright words and warmth to the nearly unspeakable, Heartdusting is an unforgettable lyrical expansion from one of our foremost young poets.

Alex Lemon is the author of Happy: A Memoir, and the poetry collections Mosquito, Hallelujah Blackout, Fancy Beasts, and The Wish Book. His writing has appeared in Esquire, Best American Poetry 2008, AGNI, BOMB, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Open City, Pleiades and Tin House, among others. He was awarded a 2005 Literature Fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he contributes and reviews frequently for a wide range of media outlets. He lives with his wife and two children in Fort Worth, and teaches at Texas Christian University.