books

DEAR KNAUSGAARD

A series of warm and often funny letters offer a heartfelt celebration of the act of reading and a compelling feminist critique of the 6-volume autobiographical novel My Struggle, by Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard.


Boiler House Press, 2022
Literary Criticism, 160pp
BUY DIRECT
“Nothing is ever truly black-and-white, cut-and-dry, this-or-that. For instance, real life obviously includes linguistic constructions. And linguistic constructions often—don't ask me how—include bits and pieces of real life.”

"Kim Adrian's loving struggle with Knausgaard is the kind of criticism I most enjoy — personal, wonderfully engaged, intense but somehow simultaneously light-footed, and extremely intelligent." —James Wood, staff writer and book critic for The New Yorker
“The book ends up being about what it means to read, to think, to allow oneself to be not just moved by a piece of art, but altered by it.”—The Boston Globe

★

THE TWENTY-SEVENTH LETTER OF THE ALPHABET

The chronicle 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.


University of Nebraska Press, 2018
Memoir, 304pp
BUY DIRECT
“Her eyes stopped swimming and she actually looked at me. Something moved at the back of her pupils, something took shape. Then it was gone and she threw my hands off. 'You're talking like an ignoramus,' she said.”

“This ambitious memoir glints with poetry and wisdom. . . . Aching, endless, unresolved, and extremely compelling.” —The Los Angeles Review of Books
“Whimsical, even darkly funny at times, brimming with compassion, terribly sad and deeply loving. Memoir readers should not miss this singular offering.” —Shelf Awareness

★

SOCK

A close examination of the humble sock reveals extraordinary secrets hiding in this most ordinary of objects and, along the way, reintroduces us to our own bodies: vulnerable, miraculous, and a little absurd.


Bloomsbury Academic, 2017
Cultural Criticism, 144pp
BUY DIRECT
“A sock is many things. A sack for the foot. A foot condom. A pediform sheath. A buffer. An insulator. A sweat sponge. A smell lodger. A bit of flash. A suggestion of sex. A magnet for holes. Above all, a wanderer.”

“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.” —Shelf Awareness
“An utterly engaging investigation. . . . Illuminating, erudite, deeply intelligent.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

★

THE SHELL GAME

A collection of thirty-three lyric essays that borrow their forms from ordinary, everyday sources—such as recipes, police reports, and crossword puzzles. Edited and with an introduction by Kim Adrian.


University of Nebraska Press, 2018
Anthology (editor), 276pp
BUY DIRECT
“Like its namesake, the hermit crab essay insists on approaching its own existence at a tilt—not quite sideways, but a little bit lopsided and, at the same time, weirdly bullheaded.”

“The Shell Game pushes the boundaries of prose and opens up a whole new world. . . . It makes readers feel as if they are learning what an essay is (or could be) all over again.” —New Pages
“The essays in this collection bring with them a sense of hope about literature and its capacity for evolution and change.” —The Millions

★

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR MY GRANDFATHER

A portrait made of absence, white space and silence, where the unanswered questions speak as loudly as the answers might have.


IKE: a Publishing Project, 2026
Essay Chapbook, 48 pages
BUY DIRECT
“If you are a lesson (of one kind or another), why is it that I can never get the pages of this lesson straight? That the order of these pages is always changing and rearranging? . . . My hair is always in my eyes when I try to understand you; I can't see a thing.”
  From the publisher's catalog:
"Questionnaire for My Grandfather is a quietly devastating essay that uses the structure of a questionnaire to interrogate what can—and cannot—be known about a man who shaped [the author's] family’s history."