My Life at the Wheel

Toward a Memoir

Lynne Sharon Schwartz

$32.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Delphinium Books, Inc
07 May 2025

In this collection of impeccably written essays, Schwartz tells us early on that she never thought of her life as a ""continuous line"" but rather a series of intertwined interrupted experiences.

Hers is a life that has been bumped, tumbled, and smoothed by an endless stream of travel, fascinating people, and books: writing them, pondering them, translating them. Her essays range from musings about the art of translation, the tribulations of major surgery dissected with biting wit, a quest for recovery from the 9 /11 attacks at a music school, and hours spent with friends arguing, drinking and smoking in a neighborhood bar. Her personal narratives range from humorous childhood (an 8-year-old writer) and troubled revelations to learning to be an adult facing the difficulties of simultaneously writing and raising children.

We see her as a daughter struggling to understand her parents through adolescent eyes, a mother startled at the all-consuming demands of motherhood and writing, and as an older adult grappling with mortality. Throughout, she is painfully honest, funny, and unafraid of difficult truths.

Relentlessly candid, subjecting herself to her own sharp scrutiny, Schwartz is willing to confront the confusions of maturing in a changing world.

By: Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Imprint: Delphinium Books, Inc
Country of Publication: United States
ISBN: 9781953002471
ISBN 10: 1953002471
Publication Date: 07 May 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Lynne Sharon Schwartz is the author of twenty-eight books of fiction, essays, and poetry, including her 2021 story collection, Truthtelling, as well as the novels Disturbances in the Field, Leaving Brooklyn, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Rough Strife, a finalist for the National Book Award. She has also published two memoirs, Ruined by Reading and Not Now, Voyager, and has translated numerous Italian works into English. Schwartz is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts in Fiction and, separately, for her work in Translation, and the New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. She has taught widely, most recently at the Bennington College Writing Seminars and the Columbia University School of the Arts.

Reviews for My Life at the Wheel: Toward a Memoir

"""Written with wit and humor, these personal essays cover a wide spectrum of human experience, from childhood curiosity and teen angst to the give-and-take of adulthood.""--The New York Times Book Review"