Nervous Essays on Heritage and Healing

"Nervous takes the focus from the abstract and does what doctors (and historians) failed to do: makes her story, her pain, and her life as real as any history that proceeded. Nervous gives face and weight to those forgotten women whose suffering has become little more than anecdotal collections of stories, not real people. It's seamless and powerful. Nervous is a masterful personal narrative, beautifully written and captivating. It should- and will- be placed alongside some of the best well-crafted and compelling contemporary memoirs of this era."--Bassey Ikpi, New York Times bestselling author of I'm Telling the Truth but I'm Lying Activist Jen Soriano brings to light the lingering impacts of transgenerational trauma and uses science, history, and family stories to flow toward transformation in this powerful collection that brings together the lyric storytelling, cultural exploration, and thoughtful analysis of The Argonauts, The Woman Warrior, What My Bones Know, and Minor Feelings. The power of quiet can haunt us over generations, crystallizing in pain that Jen Soriano views as a form of embodied history.