January 18th, 2011 / 11:44 pm
Random

Yuknavitch, Lidia. The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne, 2011)

“I’ve read Ms. Yuknavitch’s book The Chronology of Water, cover to cover, a dozen times. I am still reading it. And I will, most likely, return to it for inspiration and ideas, and out of sheer admiration, for the rest of my life. The book is extraordinary..”
–CHUCK PALAHNIUK, author of Fight Club and Pygmy

“The Chronology of Water’s central metaphor works beautifully: we all keep our heads above water, look around, and enjoy our corporeal life despite all the reasons not to; beyond that, the book is immensely impressive to me on a human level: the narrator/speaker/protagonist/author emerges from a seriously hellish childhood and spooky adolescence into a middle age not of bliss, certainly, but of convincing engagement and satisfaction.”
–DAVID SHIELDS, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

More praise here

Watch the book trailer here

Available for preorder now until April 1 from Powells or Amazon

17 Comments

  1. GuestofaGuest

      There is a nipple on the cover.

  2. Dylan Hicks

      This is an advertisement, yes? At any rate, it looks like an interesting book.

  3. shaun gannon

      A blurb on the front cover? ew.

  4. lily hoang

      i am very excited about this.

  5. Richard Thomas

      Very excited for this. Sent off a missive requesting a review copy, and hope to have my thoughts on this up at The Nervous Breakdown in a couple months. High praise from some very talented authors. Can’t wait.

  6. M. Kitchell

      Personally, I am 300x less likely to read something if Chuck Palahniuk endorses it. I have similar reactions to other situations in which an author I hate blurbs a book I would otherwise be interested in checking out. #WHENMARKETINGBACKFIRES

      (holy shit did i just use a hashtag in an htmlgiant post what is wrong with me)

  7. Kyle Minor

      He’s endorsed some really good books (Monica Drake’s Clown Girl, Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff), and he’s very generous — a guy with a large and loyal audience who introduces that audience to obscure writers. It’s super-cool of him to do that, I think.

  8. Sasha Fletcher

      not to mention that his essay on amy hempel introduced a shit ton of people to amy hempel [and through that on to lish and the lish writers and to paley and ozick and such as that]

  9. Sasha Fletcher

      by shit ton i mean me.

  10. deadgod

      what’s per se disgusting about porn?

  11. deadgod

      That’s an excellent point, Kyle: taste and talent are two different things, the person and the work aren’t (materially) identical or interchangeable, writing one is indifferent to or even detests could ‘come from’ a teacher one respects, and so on.

      But blurbs are a practical quandary, aren’t they? – especially for giant suckers, like me, ha ha.

  12. Sean

      Feeling queasy. Can’t quite decide. (I mean my checkbook.)

  13. barry

      i agree, but chuck p was right about sam lipsyte. at least in my mind he was.

  14. barry

      oh yeah. and donald too

  15. Lidiamiles

      i hope you will consider giving me a try. the way the book is made (literally — it’s design and production), i suspect you could also use it for svelte designer wallpaper if it doesn’t work out book-wise…it’s pretty high quality cover material. i like to consider a variety of use values for books i write. once my friend davis schneiderman and i, along with the late raymond federman, cooked our books in a big pot with spaghetti. really. it was exciting.

  16. On Memoir and Experiment: The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch | HTMLGIANT

      […] first heard about the book because I saw the cover here and last week I read this awesome essay on The Rumpus, by the author, about the cover and the […]

  17. PANK Blog / Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water: A Review by Dawn West

      […] this brain love is brand spanking new. Seeing the cover of The Chronology of Water here is the first time I ever saw her name. The Chronology of Water is the kind of book that makes you […]