Synopses & Reviews
A man disappears. The woman who loves him is left scarred and haunted. In her fierce, one-of-a-kind debut, Rebecca Lindenberg tells the story in verse of her passionate relationship with Craig Arnold, a much-respected poet who disappeared in 2009 while hiking a volcano in Japan. Lindenberg's billowing, I-contain-multitudes style lays bare the poets sadnesses, joys, and longings in poems that are lyric and narrative, at once plainspoken and musically elaborate.
Regarding her role in Arnold's story, Lindenberg writes with clear-eyed humility and endearing dignity: The girl with the ink-stained teeth / knows she's famous / in a tiny, tragic way. / She's not / daft, after all.” And then later, playfully, of her travels in Italy with the poet, her lover: The carabinieri / wanted to know if there were bears / in our part of America. Yes, we said, / many bears. Man-eating bears? Yes, of course, / many man-eating bears.” Every poem in this collection bursts with humor, pathos, verve and an utterly unique, soulful voice.
This widely anticipated debut, already selected as a finalist for several prominent book awards, marks the first collection in the newly minted McSweeney's Poetry Series. MPS is an imprint which seeks to publish a broad range of excellent new poetry collections in exquisitely designed hardcovers poetry that's useful and meaningful to anyone in any walk of life.
Review
"These poems accomplish — beautifully, fiercely — fix a life into a handful of moments, beyond the flow of eternity. But here Lindenberg's attention is always drifting beyond the page, to the terrible what-is, the tender what-ifs. Each poem seems to say, This is what we were given, this is what we made, and it must now, somehow, be enough."
Nick Flynn
Review
"An A-to-Z collection of poems that are passionate, plainspoken, elegiac, and lyric as they capture the moments of a life shared."
Vanity Fair
Review
"Perfectly conjures the inevitable inseparability of grief and love."
Elliot Bay Book Company
Review
"These poems are heartbreaking, not just because they mourn a lover lost but because they celebrate the enduring presence of a love shared."
Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Lindenberg executes her grief in measured, clean lines that speak of more to come... It comes to the point where a single word reaches out and takes the reader by the heart."
Weave Magazine
Review
"Beautiful and romantic."
School Library Journal
Review
"Lindenberg effortlessly creates an egoless world, full of feeling yet devoid of melodrama....A poet of immense power."
Bin Nguyen, ZYZZYVA
Review
"Love, An Index tells a beautiful and heartbreaking story."
The Rumpus
About the Author
Rebecca Lindenberg is the grateful recipient of a 2012 MacDowell Arts Colony residency, a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a 2009-2010 Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellowship. Her poetry, essays, and criticism appear in
The Believer,
POETRY,
Iowa Review,
Smartish Pace,
DIAGRAM,
Mid-American Review,
32 Poems,
Conjunctions,
Huffington Post,
Colorado Review,
Denver Quarterly,
Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Utah. She lives and writes in northern Utah.