This Is the Door

Notes from a Body in Pain
Darcey Steinke - the author beloved by Olivia Laing and Maggie Nelson - examines the experience of pain, organ by organ, both in her own body and in literature, for those in pain and those who love them

In This Is the Door, acclaimed author Darcey Steinke explores the agony and ecstasy of pain in its many forms. She takes readers through the archives and across oceans; she walks the tightrope between suffering and rapture, explores her own pain and that of a multitude of creatives characters from Frida Kahlo to Kurt Cobain.

Her journey reveals a series of questions. Does pain educate? Is pain always a physical experience of negation? How does pain push us to another level of creativity? What can we learn from wounding, from winnowing, from the stillness, the de-creation that intense pain brings? Whether it is the physical pain of an injury or illness, or the mental pain of heartache or loneliness, pain is an experience shared by all of us.

This Is the Door is a celebration of what the body can endure, and what it can achieve.