Overview

This hybrid of memoir and essay is a tour de force in breadth as well as depth. DeWitt Henry explores the profound intersection of memory, geography, and personal identity. The author meticulously maps his physical surroundings in Boston and Watertown. Through his daily commutes, he anchors his internal reflections on family loss and professional transitions. Henry examines the fragility of human connection by revisiting his childhood in suburban Philadelphia, his experiences as a young academic at Emerson College, and the founding of the literary magazine Ploughshares. Through vivid anecdotes of past romances to the ""displaced persons"" of his youth, Henry investigates how art and imagination provide the necessary, albeit imperfect, sense of ""wholeness"" in an ephemeral world. Ultimately, these essays serve as a meditation on the physicality of the body and the inevitable search for clarifying perspectives in one's life.

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9781965784525

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Reviews

""First Love is some of the best writing about sex I've ever read."" -Cassandra Atherton, author of A Perfect Life ""This essayistic memoir is all about lived life, of perspectives on the present, on the past. Of place, purpose, and experience. Of professional life, of university teaching. Of the writing life. Of the prestigious literary magazine-Ploughshares. On its start-up. Of the nature of literature. Of writer friends. Of famous writer friends. On the reality of being human. On aging. On religious and philosophical perspectives. On young love and lust. On marriage. On lived life, existence, with its many complications and expressions. This hybrid of memoir and essay is a tour de force in breadth as well as depth."" -Jack Smith, author of Amor Fati ""Perspectives is as multifaceted as a diamond's surface- Henry reflects on a wide range of topics and events, on family and youth, with all the brilliance of refracted light. Past lovers and friends are cast as remarkable characters, even the more minor ones such as Peter the undertaker ""who prided himself on practical jokes, such as pulling up in his hearse next to a housewife stopped at a light and going 'Boo!'"" With finesse, Henry exemplifies the complexity of intercultural marriage and racial issues through the disarming of the personal. And throughout, Perspectives is imbued with the keen observational, even just from a window: of a family picking through cast-out belongings from their burnt apartment, salvaging little more than a kettle. Perspectives can't help but inspire you to take note of your own refractions; singular moments that can dazzle with a lived-life universality."" - Sandra Tyler, author of The Night Garden: of My Mother

Author Information

DeWitt Henry is the founding editor of the internationally prestigious literary journal, Ploughshares. A prolific writer, his award-winning books span diverse genres, from his prize-winning novel The Marriage of Anna Maye Potts, to his essays Sweet Marjoram: Notes And Essays (2018) to his memoirs, Endings & Beginnings: Family Essays (2021), Visions Of A Wayne Childhood (2012), Sweet Dreams: A Family History (2011), Safe Suicide: Essays, Narratives, And Meditations (2008) to his poetry, Foundlings: Found Poems From Prose (2022), Restless For Words: Poems (2023), Trim Reckonings (2023), half a dozen anthologies, and articles too numerous to list. He obtained his Ph.D. in English at Harvard University and then completed M.F.A. requirements at the University of Iowa. He is Professor Emeritus at Emerson College, where he has shepherded forth several generations of nationally renowned authors.

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