Book

The reckonings : essays / Lacy M. Johnson.

Johnson, Lacy M., 1978- (author.).

Summary:

"In 2014, Lacy Johnson was giving a reading from The Other Side, her "instant classic" (Kirkus Reviews) memoir of kidnapping and rape, when a woman asked her what she would like to happen to her rapist. This collection, a meditative extension of that answer, draws from philosophy, art, literature, mythology, anthropology, film, and other fields, as well as Johnson's personal experience, to consider how our ideas about justice might be expanded beyond vengeance and retribution to include acts of compassion, patience, mercy, and grace. From "Speak Truth to Power," about the condition of not being believed about rape and assault; to "Goliath," about the concept of evil; to "Girlhood in a Semi-Barbarous Age," about the sacred feminine, "ideal woman," and feminist art, Johnson creates masterful, elaborate, gorgeously written essays that speak incisively about our current era. She grapples with justice and retribution, truth and fairness, and sexual assault and workplace harassment, as well as the broadest societal wrongs: the BP Oil Spill, government malfeasance, police killings. The Reckonings is a powerful and necessary work, ambitious in its scope, which strikes at the heart of our national conversation about the justness of society."--Amazon.com.

Record details

ISBN: 9781501159008
ISBN: 1501159003
ISBN: 1501159011
ISBN: 9781501159015
Physical Description: xi, 319 pages ; 22 cm
Edition: First Scribner hardcover edition.
Publisher: New York : Scribner, [2018]
Copyright: ©2018

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-315).
Formatted Contents Note:	The reckonings -- Girlhood in a semibarbarous age -- The precarious -- On mercy -- Speak truth to power -- What we pay -- Against whiteness -- Goliath -- The fallout -- Art in the age of apocalypses -- The flood -- Make way for joy.