Disequilibria
240 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
Paperback
Release Date:15 Feb 2023
ISBN:9780826364678
Disequilibria
Meditations on Missingness
University of New Mexico Press
Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize
Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness is a hybrid memoir that recounts the 1982 disappearance of the author's stepfather, James Edward Lewis, a pilot and Vietnam veteran. Recounting his family's experiences in searching for answers, Lunday interrogates the broader cultural and conceptual responses to the phenomenon of missingness by connecting his stepfather's case to other true-life disappearances as well as those portrayed in fiction, poetry, and film. In doing so Disequilibria explores the transience in modern life, considering the military-dependent experience, the corrosive effects of war, and the struggle to find closure and comfort as time goes by without answers.
Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness is a hybrid memoir that recounts the 1982 disappearance of the author's stepfather, James Edward Lewis, a pilot and Vietnam veteran. Recounting his family's experiences in searching for answers, Lunday interrogates the broader cultural and conceptual responses to the phenomenon of missingness by connecting his stepfather's case to other true-life disappearances as well as those portrayed in fiction, poetry, and film. In doing so Disequilibria explores the transience in modern life, considering the military-dependent experience, the corrosive effects of war, and the struggle to find closure and comfort as time goes by without answers.
With its arresting catalogue of anecdotes and passages illustrating missingness, Disequilibria captures what it's like to become obsessed with a mystery, as well as what it feels like to get trapped in its labyrinth. But most compellingly, it teaches us that if the grief-stricken can't find out the truth, they can attain solace in the still-present love for those who are gone.' Rigoberto González, author of Abuela in Shadow, Abuela in Light
This haunting, engrossing, superbly written memoir is full of revelations and mysteries: a kind of prose epic of the missing. Chockful of Americana, it is also marbled with uncanny literary references: Robert Lunday seems to have read everything and put it to good use. His intelligence makes this book shine.' Phillip Lopate, author of A Mother's Tale
Robert Lunday is a professor of English at Houston Community College. He is also author of Mad Flights and Gnome.
Finding; Understanding
Doubles
Oracles
Relics
The Asymptote
Parallax
Nomads and Exiles
In the Cloud
The Middle Distance
Face of Shadows
Uroboros
The Sun and I
Hitchhike
Sayaboury
I Am the Grass
The Boy Scout Handbook
Circles
The Verge
Vita Activa
Disequilibria
A Beautiful Death
China
The Swerve
A Feral Presence
Dark Heart
The Vortex
Flitcraft's Folly
Wakefields
The Circumambient Self
Subterranean
Spirit Radios
Lightness
Foolish Dreams
Old Soldiers Never Die
Worldness
Flying on Fumes
July 3, 1969
The Edge
Desert Dreams
The Return
Acknowledgments
Notes
Doubles
Oracles
Relics
The Asymptote
Parallax
Nomads and Exiles
In the Cloud
The Middle Distance
Face of Shadows
Uroboros
The Sun and I
Hitchhike
Sayaboury
I Am the Grass
The Boy Scout Handbook
Circles
The Verge
Vita Activa
Disequilibria
A Beautiful Death
China
The Swerve
A Feral Presence
Dark Heart
The Vortex
Flitcraft's Folly
Wakefields
The Circumambient Self
Subterranean
Spirit Radios
Lightness
Foolish Dreams
Old Soldiers Never Die
Worldness
Flying on Fumes
July 3, 1969
The Edge
Desert Dreams
The Return
Acknowledgments
Notes
