In Many Ways - Emily Simon

In Many Ways by Emily Simon / ISBN 9781959708018 / 76-page paperback published in 2023 by Winter Editions *** At once a log of pandemic life in New York City and a meditation on selfhood, memory, and language, Emily Simon’s first book is a lyrical and timely experiment in prose fragments. In Many Ways describes a self in process, at odds, and enthralled, in search of the origins of her unsatisfiable pursuit of meaning. The writerly drive to fix the fleeting moment comes up against a contradictory impulse to escape—through writing—the binds of formal codes and conventions. Simon’s shifts and disjunctions map the unsteady flow of pandemic time, observing the clash of interior experience with the social world. Sharp, witty, heartfelt, and alarmingly thought-provoking, In Many Ways is unique in form, profound of mind, fiercely intelligent, and the prose is jaw-droppingly exquisite.—Binnie Kirshenbaum “Embarrassment is a lesson in size.” Emily Simon’s In Many Ways pursues the tributaries of