Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Amy Fusselman's first two books, The Pharmacist's Mate and 8, weave surprising beauty out of diverse strands of personal reflection. Half memoir and half philosophical improvisation, each focuses loosely on a relationship with a man in the author's life: The Pharmacist's Mate with her recently deceased father, and 8 with "my pedophile" (as Fusselman painfully refers to her childhood assailant). Along the way, Fusselman covers sea shanties and artificial insemination, World War II and AC/DC, alternative healers and monster-truck videos. Fusselman's "wholly original epigrammatic style" (Vogue) "makes the world strange again, a place where dying and making life are equally mysterious and miraculous activities" (Time Out New York).Synopsis
Amy Fusselman's first two books, The Pharmacist's Mate and 8, weave surprising beauty out of diverse strands of personal reflection. Half memoir and half philosophical improvisation, each focuses loosely on a relationship with a man in the author's life: The Pharmacist's Mate with her recently deceased father, and 8 with "my pedophile" (as Fusselman painfully refers to her childhood assailant). Along the way, Fusselman covers sea shanties and artificial insemination, World War II and AC/DC, alternative healers and monster-truck videos. Fusselman's "wholly original epigrammatic style" (Vogue) "makes the world strange again, a place where dying and making life are equally mysterious and miraculous activities" (Time Out New York).
Editorials
The Washington Post -
Publishers have become quite adept at re-releasing books the masses already have consumed. Just slap on a fancy, limited-edition cover or add a freshly penned prologue, and bam—suddenly it's a new product…Every once in a while, though, one of those repackaged works does something unusual: It elevates the quality of the original, turning it into a deeper, more meaningful read. Such is the case with Amy Fusselman's The Pharmacist's Mate and 8, a new collection that combines the two previously issued mini-memoirs into one cohesive exploration of a woman's attempt to process life's darker moments…and to carve out a path toward light.From the Publisher
"The writer’s skill — she deftly weaves together her spurts of diary-style insight with passages from her dad’s journals circa World War II — quickly shines through. The loss of a loved one, especially a parent, inevitably forces a person to examine her own mortality, which Fusselman does with wry humor and a sense of wonder."—The Washington Post"It is impossible not to surrender to Amy Fusselman's lovely, haunting voice and strange meditations."
— Amanda Davis