{"product_id":"the-long-weeping","title":"The Long Weeping","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Essays\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this collection of portraits  the eye is the vital \"lamp of the body \" a spiritual organ van Eerden uses to craft essays that are as much encounters as they are likenesses  as much being seen as seeing. Historical subjects like Simone Weil and the Beguines confront the author's imaginative and intellectual being  while the viscerally close foci of family and a lost marriage must also be reckoned with. The author's religious tradition and the rural landscape of Terra Alta  West Virginia are two backgrounds that are neither chosen nor fully understood  but van Eerden's attention to these matters becomes its own form of devotion  a longing to see and to believe-the longing itself taking on the robustness of faith. This is the common goal of these essays  to fully meet each subject and return to it some form of wholeness  a quest full of lush imagery and insights.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJessie van Eerden\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of two novels  \u003cem\u003eGlorybound\u003c\/em\u003e (WordFarm)  recipient of the 2012 Editor's Choice Fiction Prize from \u003cem\u003eForeword Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e  and \u003cem\u003eMy Radio Radio\u003c\/em\u003e (Vandalia Press  2016). Her work has appeared in \u003cem\u003eThe Oxford American\u003c\/em\u003e  \u003cem\u003eImage  Cimarron Review \u003c\/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe River Teeth Reader\u003c\/em\u003e  and \u003cem\u003eBest American Spiritual Writing\u003c\/em\u003e  among other places. Van Eerden received an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa in 2007 and was awarded the 2007-2008 Milton Fellowship at \u003cem\u003eImage\u003c\/em\u003e and Seattle Pacific University for work on her first novel. She currently directs the low-residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview(s)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: arial  helvetica  sans-serif font-size: medium\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"caret-color: #000000 color: #000000 font-style: normal font-variant-caps: normal font-weight: normal letter-spacing: normal text-align: start text-indent: 0px text-transform: none white-space: normal word-spacing: 0px -moz-text-size-adjust: auto -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px text-decoration: none display: inline !important float: none\"\u003e\"Van Eerden sidles into her Appalachian past carrying Simone Weil on her shoulders and her own grit between her toes  'speaking out of fury  knowing that fury can have the same source as love.' [...] Van Eerden may be working out her faith  awash in fear and trembling  through these essays  leaving the unanswerable questions unanswered but reckoned with through lyric.\"\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e-Sarah Wells \u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eRiver Teeth\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Van Eerden's fundamentalist religious upbringing is recognized  not despised  as a vital part of her past  even as she moves into larger spiritual circles. Humility  warmth  and charm underscore the collection's darker brushes with death  divorce  and self-doubt. Essays extend an invitation to peer through van Eerden's particular window  which reveals the commonality of humanity despite differing circumstances. Traversing the full range of human experiences with grace  \u003cem\u003eThe Long Weeping\u003c\/em\u003e insists that solace awaits on the other side of even the blackest tumult  if only it can be perceived and grasped.\" \u0026amp;ndash\u003cem\u003eForeword Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e  starred review\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Van Eerden is one of the best essayists working today if judged by her craft and intellect alone  but her gifts go beyond those: she is also one of the most honest. \u003cem\u003eThe Long Weeping\u003c\/em\u003e turns a visionary eye and a laser mind on subjects often simplified or even scorned by contemporary culture: white poverty  mysticism  love of family  the wisdom of modest people. Van Eerden is brave enough to say the hard things. She's strong enough to love the hard places. \u0026amp;ndashAnn Pancake  author of \u003cem\u003eGiven Ground\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eMe and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In these startlingly honest and imaginative essays  ​van Eerden enlarges the world around her  giving flesh to what is all too often flattened by the outside eye  anointing places and people and the throbbing spaces between them as she searches out and sings litanies to what she calls the \u0026amp;lsquolarger body I belonged to and could not leave.' Lush and razor-sharp  \u003cem\u003eThe Long Weeping \u003c\/em\u003eshimmers with intelligence and grace. The truest essays I've read in a long time.\" \u0026amp;ndashSonja Livingston  author of \u003cem\u003eGhostbread \u003c\/em\u003eand\u003cem\u003e Queen of the Fall \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Jessie van Eerden's wholehearted essays are acts of ardent and radical comprehension  contending with mysteries and memories that would lead many to declare an impasse  or to employ miniaturizing disdain. Van Eerden is too adventurous a comprehender to be easily thwarted  though  and she is too serious for disdain. In these portrait essays she takes all of her subjects seriously-the \u0026amp;lsquoWoman with Dog with Mange ' the concubine shooing the birds away from her sons' dead bodies  the checkout lady at the Dollar General  as well as her younger self  who at the time felt herself \u0026amp;lsquoscruffy and insignificant.' Here is no nefarious regularizing of the past or imposition of ideology here is the shock of experience-funny  warm  odd  grievous-in a West Virginia childhood  twelfth-century Belgium  or an interior desert where you learn how to love. Like someone fleeing to the desert from supposedly desirable  supposedly enviable things  Jessie van Eerden's book is \u0026amp;lsquomad for something else' and I was thrilled to follow her.\" \u0026amp;ndashAmy Leach  author of \u003cem\u003eThings That Are\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Itasca Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54526320541971,"sku":"9780996439756","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0948\/3521\/2563\/files\/img_proxy_e5414a96-7f5d-427b-aa85-d0d55c535fbd.jpg?v=1785850746","url":"https:\/\/danuc.net\/products\/the-long-weeping","provider":"Danu's Wardrobe","version":"1.0","type":"link"}