Pain Studies

(Paperback)

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'Fascinating...This extended lyric essay succeeds in delivering an intriguing look at a set of questions with wide relevance.' Publisher's Weekly

'Erudite...Olstein's blending of the personal and the academic is compelling...A quality addition to the literature on pain.' Kirkus Reviews

In this extended lyric essay, a poet mines her lifelong experience with migraine to deliver a marvellously idiosyncratic cultural history of pain how we experience, express, treat, and mistreat it. Her sources range from the trial of Joan of Arc to the essays of Virginia Woolf and Elaine Scarry to Hugh Laurie's portrayal of Gregory House on House M.D. As she engages with science, philosophy, visual art, rock lyrics, and field notes from her own medical adventures (both mainstream and alternative), she finds a way to express the often-indescribable experience of living with pain. Eschewing simple epiphanies, Olstein instead gives us a new language to contemplate and empathise with a fundamental aspect of the human condition.

'A fascinating, totally seductive read!' Eula Biss, author ofNotes from No Man's Land: American Essays and On Immunity: An Inoculation

'A book built of brain and nerve and blood and heart...Irreverent and astute...Pain Studieswill change how you think about living with a body.' Elizabeth McCracken, author ofThunderstruck and Bowlawa

'A thrilling investigation into pain, language, and Olstein's own exile from what Woolf called 'the army of the upright.' On a search path through art, science, poetry, and prime-time television, Olstein aims her knife-bright compassion at the very thing we're all running from.Pain Studiesis a masterpiece.' Leni Zumas, author ofThe Listeners and Red Clocks

Reviews

Writers League of Texas Discovery Prize Winner
Big Other Book Award Finalist
Mayors Book Club selection

Olstein succeeds marvelously when directly reflecting on her own pain and her attempts to treat it. An accomplished poet, she often uses language beautifully and inventively. New York Times Book Review

In the spirit of Maggie Nelsons The Argonauts and Joan Didions The Year of Magical Thinking. . . . Think of Pain Studies as a kind of travel literature, a Gullivers Travels-like guidebook for those visiting the land of pain. Rain Taxi Review of Books

[Olstein] lays down shimmering prose that subtly unhinges the reader, conveying what its like to see the world from a migraines point-of-view. . . . Pain Studies is all the more powerful because its content is echoed by its form. It builds in fragments and bursts of prose. Its colors are vivid and brilliant. Adroit Journal

Deft, ingenious. . . . This is raw physicality in words. . . . Take the journey, read it. Its brain, blood, pain, life, and death; poetry in prose, a book that must be read and lived. Lone Star Literary Life

Pain Studies is an excavationno mere poking around!of pain and transcends the restraints of either prose or poetic forms. . . . Olstein achieves a gorgeous mosaic . . . to produce remarkable work. Literary Review

Unexpectedly bright and punchy. . . . [Olstein] drops the heavy mantles of pain writing and dips, like a swimmer, into the ways that pain infiltrates and orients a bodymind, into the ways that it arranges a life. Avidly

Like an artists drawings of a bird or a human hand, Olsteins studies show us pain from dozens of angles so that we eventually see its whole shapeBrevity

Dazzling, puzzling, ornate, arcane, and deeply intelligent. Literature, Arts and Medicine Database

Olstein is a poet, which is clear in the quality of her language. [Pain Studies] is rich, absorbing, and suggestive. Book Riot

Grabs readers attention, even those without a history of chronic illness. . . . Its analysis spans multiple perspectives and includes Olsteins sincere recollections, making this extended lyrical essay shine. Library Journal

Fascinating. . . . [Pain Studies] succeeds in delivering an intriguing look at a set of questions with wide relevance. Publishers Weekly

Erudite. . . . Olsteins blending of the personal and the academic is compelling. . . . A quality addition to the literature on pain. Kirkus Reviews

Thoughtful and thought-provoking. Midwest Book Review

Lisa Olsteins luminous meditation on pain winds around a beautifully curated series of artifacts. Bits of poetry, ancient medicine, brain science, television episodes, excerpts from the trial of Joan of Arc, and works of art support the spiderweb on which her insights hang like condensed mist. A fascinating, totally seductive read! Eula Biss, author of Notes from No Mans Land: American Essays and On Immunity: An Inoculation

Olstein offers readers an eclectic and deeply personal set of meditations on pain as experienced and remembered, inflicted and endured, perceived and denied. Through neuroscience, literature, and history, from hit TV shows to classical philosophy, this is a unique and fascinating contribution to the literature of pain in general, and migraine in particular. Katherine Foxhall, author of Migraine: A History

In Pain Studies, Olstein paints a sharp-witted and insightful picture of the rollercoaster ride that is called pain. Her own experiences allow her to approach the topic in a way that provides relevant reading to anyone treating or living with chronic pain. As doctors, we need to find more effective ways to help patients dealing with pain. This book is a step in that direction. Jill Heytens, M.D., neurologist

Olsteins remarkable Pain Studies is a book built of brain and nerve and blood and heart, about what it means to live with pain. Irreverent and astute, synthesizing the personal and the historical, popular culture and poetry and visual art, Pain Studies will change how you think about living with a body in our beautiful and doomed world. Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck and Bowlaway

Like a prismatic series of artists sketches, Pain Studies offers a dazzling variety of perspectivespersonal, political, phenomenological, lyricalon the unanswerable question of human suffering. Through virtuosic readings of everything from pre-Socratic philosophy to the trial transcripts of Joan of Arc to the cultural semiotics of House M.D., Olstein brilliantly extends the literature of pain into our contemporary historical moment. But this searching work also illuminates how pain studies us. Turning the last page on Olsteins agonistic anatomy, weve come to know one of hurts intimate acquaintances, unbroken by her suffering, or if broken in parts, then painstakingly remade. Srikanth Reddy, author of Voyager and Changing Subjects: Digressions in Modern American Poetry

These spectacular sentences chart a thrilling investigation into pain, language, and Olsteins own exile from what Woolf called the army of the upright. On a search path through art, science, poetry, and prime-time television, Olstein aims her knife-bright compassion at the very thing were all running from. Pain Studies is a masterpiece. Leni Zumas, author of The Listeners and Red Clocks

Author Bio

Lisa Olstein is the author of four poetry collections published by Copper Canyon Press: Radio Crackling, Radio Gone, winner of the Hayden Carruth Award; Lost Alphabet, a Library Journal Best Book of the Year selection; Little Stranger, a Lannan Literary Selection; and Late Empire. She is a member of the poetry faculty at the University of Texas at Austin where she teaches in the New Writers Project and Michener Center for Writers MFA programs. Olstein also serves as an associate editor for Tupelo Quarterly. Pain Studies is her first book of creative nonfiction.