Cohen, Julia
Description
"Each section of Freak Lip focuses on an unsaid sentence, a sentence that lives inside the body but cannot be said out loud. These linked lyric essays
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examine what happens when we can't expel a sentence and the ripple affect it has on the formation of sexual identity and intimacy. Investigating the distinction between secrecy and privacy, Cohen explores how much of oneself can only be known through another. Weaving in postmodern epistolary forms such as break-up emails, AirBnB reviews, and text message threads, Freak Lip documents the blood we want to talk about and the sex we want to have. And after many relationships that have been jeopardized by the act of withholding, this collection dives into what it feels like to cultivate an openness to love with someone who is young but terminally ill. In a dynamic that becomes two people racing against an impending heart transplant, the "evidence" of a partner's unsaid sentence threatens to undermine what they hoped to survive together. Deeply grounded in Gertrude Stein, Mary Rueffle, and Louise Gluck, these essays illuminate the interconnection between vulnerability, Jewish atheism, and faith in how language can let us reach outside our bodies"-- Provided by publisher.
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