Maggie Nelson’s “Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth”
Maggie Nelson joins Kate Wolf to discuss her new book “Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth.”
By LARB Radio HourApril 25, 2025
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Maggie Nelson’s “Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth”
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Maggie Nelson joins Kate Wolf to discuss her new book Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth. It is at once a compressed record of her long struggle with chronic pain and a document of the boundless blur of the pandemic era. It combines vignettes of daily life and doctor’s visits with dreams and memories, pushing at the partition between interior and exterior, symptom and experience, containment and surrender. Nelson depicts the mysteries of pain and the vulnerability of the human body with both humor and pathos, as well as the connections that are possible even in a moment of extreme isolation.
LARB Contributor
The LARB Radio Hour is hosted by Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Wolf.
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Did you know LARB is a reader-supported nonprofit?
LARB publishes daily without a paywall as part of our mission to make rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts freely accessible to the public. Help us continue this work with your tax-deductible donation today!