The Terrible: A Storyteller's Memoir

Synopsis

Winner of the PEN Ackerley Prize • Longlisted for the 2019 PEN Open Book Award “Devastating and lyrical.” — The New York Times “Suspenseful and affecting.” — The New Yorker From the celebrated poet behind bone , a collection of poems that tells a story of coming-of-age, uncovering the cruelty and beauty of the world, going under, and finding redemption Through her signature sharp, searing poems, this is the story of Yrsa Daley-Ward and all the things that happened.

“Even the terrible things. And God, there were terrible things.” It’s about her childhood in the northwest of England with her beautiful, careworn mother Marcia; the man formerly known as Dad (half fun, half frightening); and her little brother Roo, who sees things written in the stars.

It’s also about the surreal magic of adolescence, about growing up and discovering the power and fear of sexuality, about pitch-gray days of p…