Suffering is the Easy Part explains Loren Kleinman in her latest book

Based on the popular Huffington Post essay and short film (trailer below), the book – now available for pre-order from publishizer.com - chronicles trauma, including sexual assault, abortion, the crushing silence and depression surrounding survivors afterward, the mental health issues that arise in the wake of trauma and the healing power of our own nature.

In its longest silence, trauma is even more present. Trauma is the unsaid, the uncertain, that prolongs feelings of loss. How do we define this notion of presence and absence? What is the paradigm? Poet Li-Young Lee offers an analogy regarding presence and absence: He equates them to inhaling and exhaling breath. Our presence is marked by the inhalation. Oxygen spreads into our lungs and bloodstream, nourishing our bones, our cells, and our skin. Breath is life.

The exhalation manifests an absence or a silence, but still there is life. When we inhale, speech terminates; communication is stunted. As we exhale speech is regained, but nutrients exit the body; the organs weaken; the lungs lessen in size. Lee describes this as “dying breath.” When we speak we use dying breath. Meaning grows in “opposite ratio to presence and vitality.” He suggests a kind of paradigm for life, especially in the case of trauma in that as we die meaning is declared. The “less vitality we have the more the meaning of our lives gets disclosed” (Lee qtd in Chang 19). That absence in our bodies translates as presence. Trauma narrative is born out of this relationship.

Throughout the book, readers are invited to find entry points into these short pieces that take the form of poetry, memoir and essay. These snapshots of a complex life—including accounts of abuse, rape, grief, suicide, love, and loss—are rendered poetic, yet accessible to a wide audience. Suffering Is the Easy Part will appeal especially to those craving an authentic voice that is at the same time unique and universal.

To pre-order Suffering is the Easy Part by Loren Kleinman head to publishizer.com


Video Link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/143398233