Sex with a Brain Injury, Annie Liontas
Sex with a Brain Injury, Annie Liontas
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
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Sex with a Brain Injury
On Concussion and Recovery

Author: Annie Liontas

Narrator: Natalie Naudus

Unabridged: 9 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/16/2024


Synopsis

Winner of the Stonewall Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award and the Jeanne Córdova Prize

This powerful and deeply personal memoir in essays “reflects on history, philosophy, and love while living with head trauma” (The New York Times Book Review).

“An infuriatingly gorgeous, important book.” —Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties * “A riveting book about embodiment, pain, identity, and intimacy…this book is a stunning achievement.” —Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood

After suffering multiple concussions in her thirties, Annie Liontas shares what it means to be one of the “walking wounded” in Sex with a Brain Injury. Facing her fear, her rage, her physical suffering, and the effects of head trauma on her marriage and other relationships, Liontas is forced to reckon with her own queer mother’s battle with addiction and finds echoes in their pain. Liontas weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability—particularly in relation to women and the LGBT community. She uncovers the surprising legacy of brain injury, examining its role in culture, the criminal justice system, and through historical figures like Henry VIII and Harriet Tubman. Through Liontas’s sharp, affecting prose, we can imagine this kind of pain, and having to claw one’s way back to a new normal. The hidden gift of injury, Liontas writes, is the ability to connect with others.

For the millions of people who have suffered from concussions and for those who have endeavored to support loved ones through the painful and often baffling experience of head trauma, this intimate memoir of a profound affliction and resilience…stands as testimony to love and patience” (Kirkus Reviews).

About Annie Liontas

Annie Liontas is the genderqueer author of the novel Let Me Explain You and the coeditor of A Manner of Being: Writers on their Mentors. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Gay Magazine, NPR, Electric Literature, BOMB, The Believer, Guernica, McSweeney’s, and other publications. A graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA program, she is a professor of writing at George Washington University. Annie has served as a mentor for Pen City’s incarcerated writers and helped secure a Mellon Foundation grant on Disability Justice to bring storytelling to communities in the criminal justice system. She lives in Philadelphia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by mickey on August 08, 2024

jesus christ dude.... it took me a long time to read this book because it kept hitting too close to home - this is the first time I have read something that has reached so deeply into a part of me that I thought previously impossible to understand by other people and maybe not even myself. This book......more

Goodreads review by Bailey on December 09, 2023

Sex With A Brain Injury on Concussion and Recovery was a completely unexpected read! I won this book from Goodreads (Thank you Goodreads!!!)! I originally entered because I thought as a future social worker it might give me insight into the struggles of individuals who have experienced a brain injur......more

Goodreads review by Maya on January 14, 2024

3/5 stars, A memoir about life after multiple concussions. As someone who has had multiple concussions, this piece was very emotional for me to read about someone struggling with the same issues. I particularly enjoyed the discussion around athletes with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and incarcerat......more

Goodreads review by Jennie on May 14, 2024

3.5 stars… Not sure how to rate/review this book. There were parts that I resonated with deeply and others that left me wondering what the author was trying to say, i.e what was the point? I do believe this was intentional on the author's part, to mimic what it is like to live with/experience multipl......more

Goodreads review by Genevieve on July 31, 2024

"When I break through, it is for no less than this: I will have my life." this took me a while to finish -- it is a painful relief to find so much understanding in these pages. as other reviews note, the title of this book is somewhat deceptive -- liontas only dedicates one chapter to sex. i'm not ma......more