"Adrian's writing remains hypnotic on every subject." —Tin House
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| The story of a daughter's struggle to face the Medusa of generational trauma without turning to stone, an intimate portrait of the chaos and confusion of a mother's mental illness, and a deep meditation on storytelling itself. Written in the form of a glossary. |
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The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet memoir, 304 pp
University of Nebraska Press, 2018
Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist
“Astonishing and inventive. [Adrian's] glossary is strangely gripping, with a momentum pulling the reader in and through. The result is whimsical, even darkly funny at times, brimming with compassion, terribly sad and deeply loving. Memoir readers should not miss this singular offering.”
“This ambitious memoir glints with poetry and wisdom. . . . Aching, endless, unresolved, and extremely compelling. . . . [Adrian's] glossary, in making a place for everything, has provided a way through this harrowing tale of the toll of generational trauma . . . with generosity, honesty, and insight.”
“The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet is an unconventional, wildly disturbing, and hugely innovative book. It is an intimate portrait of family dysfunction, addiction, and mental illness that grabs the reader immediately. The story is told in razor-sharp vignettes. . . crisp and wide-eyed.”
“Details, with precision, sensitivity, and lyricism, the specialized language of a childhood and adulthood with an alcoholic father and a mother with a catalog of emotional problems. The [glossary] form imposes a semblance of order, is an attempt at understanding, and blazes with harrowing moments. . . . An intimate and searching accumulation of the moments, tender and brutal, that heap together and create a life.”
“Adrian’s unique approach to narrating a story that resists order is to transform it into glossary entries. . . . Some of the entries are long and provide pages of narrative, others are brief like a punch.”
“Adrian uses a highly unconventional form to mirror her confusion over how to connect her wide-ranging, frequently painful memories of what she and her sister endured . . . creating deep connections between the reader and her childhood self.”
“A remarkable rendering of a mother-daughter relationship . . . sprinkled with evocative memories, at turns hilarious, repulsive, poetic, and devastating. The form of the glossary works neatly as a conduit for cataloguing the way memory works in our consciousness, popping up unexpectedly and without a need for chronology. . . The text is challenging because of the subject matter [but] Adrian weaves pathos and humor throughout. ”
“Adrian’s writing remains hypnotic on every subject, a consuming plunge into each and every moment.”
Amazon Nebraska Bookshop
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| Twenty-five letters written to the Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgard evolve, with warmth and humor, into a compelling feminist critique of Knausgaard's 6-volume autobiographical novel, My Struggle, and a heartfelt celebration of the act of reading. |
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Dear Knausgaard
literary criticism, 194 pp
Fiction Advocate (US edition), 2020
Boiler House Press (UK edition), 2022
"Personal, wonderfully engaged, intense but somehow simultaneously light-footed, and extremely intelligent. The brilliance of [Adrian's] feminist critique is that it acutely exposes vulnerabilities in Knausgaard's male universalism while affectionately acknowledging the scope and appeal of his inevitably gendered voice. A delight from start to finish."
—James Wood, literary critic for The New Yorker
“On display is a rigorous mind, a fiery intellect, a curious and engaged reader.” “If you’re seeking a heady, thoughtful response to a heady, thoughtful multi-volume work — well, we have a recommendation for you.”
“Intriguing . . . Adrian’s dynamic work of both literary and self-analysis will appeal to those passionate readers who have vacillated between adoring certain authors and wanting to throw their books across the room.”
"I can’t pin it down, this spirit I can’t find any prior evidence of. If she’s borrowing a form, Adrian returns it, so far as I can tell, utterly unrecognizable, either dissolved or reinvented . . . I don’t know how she does it."
Amazon Boiler House Press
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| Unraveling the garment's history, construction, and use, Sock reintroduces us to our own bodies—vulnerable, bipedal, and flawed—and along the way reveals extraordinary secrets hiding in this most ordinary of objects. |
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Sock cultural criticism, 144 pp
Bloomsbury Academic, 2017
Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House (Chinese translation), 2021
“An utterly engaging investigation — not so much of [the sock], per se, as of human evolution, anatomy, physics, sexuality, fashion, painting, consumerism, manufacturing, and motherhood. . . . Illuminating, erudite, deeply intelligent.”
“Sock reflects on the brilliance present in the minutiae of our lives. With piercing wit, idiosyncratic humor and sharply insightful moments of personal examination, Adrian uses the most domestic of items as a lens through which to view the inelegance and wondrousness of humanity.”
“If a book called Sock makes you think, 'Twenty-five-thousand words on socks? Uh, no,' then you’re unclear on the concept. You’re also missing out on a thoroughly delightful discussion.”
“What a treat! . . . This slim little marvel of trivia and attention to the overlooked . . . was a near-religious experience for me.”
“A remarkable read, a perfectly satisfying balance of fact and quirk and charm.”
Barnes & Noble Amazon Bloomsbury
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| A ground-breaking collection of "hermit crab essays" (essays that borrow the forms things like recipes, police reports, crossword puzzles, and high school math tests). Often cited as a foremost example of the genre. |
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The Shell Game: Writers Play with Borrowed Forms anthology (edited and with an Introduction by Kim Adrian), 276 pp
University of Nebraska Press, 2018
"The essays in this collection bring with them a sense of hope about literature and its capacity for evolution and change. . . . A volume that is as much an inspiration for other writers as it is a definitive collection of a constantly evolving genre."
“Pushes the boundaries of prose and opens up a whole new world. . . . makes readers feel as if they are learning what an essay is (or could be) all over again.”
"If good creative writing sparks the instinct to write, The Shell Game provides ample embers to inspire a wide range of writers. . . Anyone from the expert essayist, lay reader, or a teacher looking for an evocative anthology will find something of value in these pages."
"The Shell Game may serve to expand what readers think of when they think of the essay."
“Kim Adrian’s introduction demonstrates the potential and beauty of the hermit crab approach.”
"If you were to recommend this book to others, you’d likely tell them to savor it, make it last: tell them that they should not 'binge-read' it, but rather treat themselves with a new form each day until they’ve read the last one."
"This collection can be returned to again and again, as the reading mind grows . . . The Shell Game makes a unique and significant contribution."
Amazon Nebraska Bookshop