Mystery and Mortality: Essays on the Sad, Short Gift of Life

Literary Nonfiction. O'Connor and Ferrante. Franzen, McCarthy, Brian Allen Carr. Kathy Acker and Wallace -- MYSTERY AND MORTALITY is a collection of essays about literature. Paula Bomer focuses on the hardest things in life that inspire great writing, like the pain of loss in death, loss in love, loss in memory. Kierkegaard writes of the poet whose tortured screams from the dungeon sound like beautiful music to the king, so far removed. Here, Bomer's essays bring us back to what we're supposed to derive from literature: compassion.