Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction (Paperback)

by Sabrina Chapadjiev (Editor)
Key Phrases: silent body, art lab, speaking body, Little Hell Breaks Loose, New York, Sketching Sanity (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

“Inspiration, ultimately, is what this visceral book is about.”—Bay Windows

“Live Through This answers the age-old question tortured, complex artists wrestle with:  ‘Why don’t you write about it?’ These writers do. They take centre stage and take up the space they’ve learned they deserve. Women’s and cultural studies students, take note. ”—Now Toronto

“As a whole, the collection posits a hopeful message: that while the quirks and sensitivities of a creative mind often seem predisposed to depression, they are also the exact qualities that provide a special set of tools with which to find a way through the darkest moments.”—Bust Magazine

"Captivating, concise, and humbling, Live Through This is easy to put down between pieces and become just as immersed upon picking it up again."—Feminist Review

 “With more esteemed names than can be listed…this book will gather no dust on your bookshelf.”—Curve Magazine

In a collection of original stories, essays, artwork, and photography, Nan Goldin, Eileen Myles, bell hooks, and other cutting-edge artists explore their use of art to survive madness, abuse, incest, depression, and the impulse toward self-destruction manifest in eating disorders, cutting, addiction, and contemplation of suicide. The book confronts the brutality many women and girls encounter in the world around them, and bravely takes as its subject the often misunderstood violence they at times inflict upon themselves.

The diverse array of contributors here—novelists, poets, cartoonists, dancers, photographers, playwrights, burlesque performers—traverse the pains and passions that can both motivate and destroy women artists, and they mark a path for survival. Together they show that creative women are not destined to the fate of lost visionaries such as Woolf, Sexton, Arbus, and Plath. Live Through This is a fearless exploration of women’s silent rage, the power that can come from internal struggle, and the possibility of transforming this burning force into fierce and enlightened work.

With contributions by Nan Goldin, bell hooks, Patricia Smith, Cristy Road, Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, Elizabeth Stephens, Carolyn Gage, Eileen Myles, Fly, Diane DiMassa, Bonfire Madigan, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, Toni Blackman, Nicole Blackman, Silas Howard, Daphne Gottleib, and Stephanie Howell.

Sabrina Chapadjiev is a playwright, spoken word artist, and singer-songwriter originally from the suburbs of Chicago. She is founder of the all-woman songwriter series Chicks that Kick, editor of the zine Cliterature: 18 Interviews with Women Writers, and her plays, including Perhaps Merely Quiet, have been produced in the United States and Europe.

About the Author
Sabrina Chapadjiev was the main organizer of the Jane Festival, founder of the all woman songwriter series, Chicks that Kick, and an organizer of New York's Ladyfest. She is currently working on a play about women and mental illness entitled, Perhaps Merely Quiet, which will be produced in London this year.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press; Seven Stories Press 1st Ed edition (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583228276
• ISBN-13: 978-1583228272
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #484,836 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars at long last, September 28, 2008

By	Jenn D. - See all my reviews

when our female role models self destruct, we witness the media belittle them with glorified humiliation (read: britney spears) or morbid reverence (read: sarah kane).

when we question why our loved ones are anorexic, bulimic, cutting, and otherwise hurting themselves, the conversation is silenced with shrugs or competitive storytelling.

"live through this" shifts that conversation by presenting the experience of an impressive lineup of womyn, who through their stories demonstrate a pattern of finding personal power through self-destructive experiences, then channeling that power into more positive and productive activities.

beyond the stories themselves, the book challenges us to have a different kind of conversation about self-destructive tendencies. beyond medication, shame, and silence there is energy and power that has the potential to build creative, supportive community.

an amazing read!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars you are not alone, September 20, 2008

By	Blanca Noir (New York) - See all my reviews

This book doesn't offer answers, it is not a step-by step process for how to heal. Rather it is a collection of experiences... stories about how others have coped, fought and triumphed, using their own strengths and creativity. Just knowing that depression and destruction can be dealt with in ways that are not exclusive to a bottle of pills or weekly visits to a doctor is useful. For anyone who has been on the floor with no idea how to get up, I would recommend this book as proof of life.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Women Survive via Creative, Not Always Pleasant, Means, October 22, 2008

By	Rachel Kramer Bussel "Cupcakes Take the Cake ... (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Live Through This is a revolutionary, powerful, and potentially life-saving book. It's not just that editor Sabrina Chapadjiev has collected the work of some of the most creative female artists and writers, but that they in turn bravely take us behind the scenes to moments often before they became the bold-faced names they are today and share their darkest times and coping mechanisms.

The fact is, it's often hard to reconcile the women writing these pieces with what I know of them. Exhibitionism for the Shy and Live Nude Girl author Carol Queen was really once going to kill herself? And yet of course it all makes perfect sense. These women give readers an outlet not just to hear their stories, but to claim our own coping mechanisms without judgment. It's not that they are encouraging cutting or eating disorders, to name two examples, but that they've been there, done/heard that, and have moved on. Nicole Blackman writes of the power she unwittingly tapped into, becoming the keeper of her fans' secrets, and not knowing how to deal with such pain in their lives.

Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle write of turning cancer, a deadly disease, into art, in one of the most powerful pieces in the book. Within these pages, everything is okay, if that's what you need to do to survive, as Kate Bornstein so eloquently points out: "Cutting, starving yourself, drugging, drinking... these are all rituals some of us develop in order to deal with pain. Each of these solutions to pain is in itself painful, so each solution/ritual contains a very personal lesson on how to handle the experience of pain." Her journey took her through Scientology and into art, among other things, and the stark examples of her artwork say so much about the pain she was living through.


I don't think it's a coincidence that as I read this book while I was going through a very dark time, dealing with depression and anxiety. I read part of it during a medical crisis as I sat in the waiting room. Because that's another thing: even though this is a book about getting past those self-destructive, self-defeating, awful mental (and physical) struggles, these authors don't hold out any panaceas or claim to be completely "over" these issues. They have certainly learned and matured, but this is not just an "and I lived to tell the tale" book. It's much more than that, because one gets the sense that though they may have stopped drinking, getting high, and outright harming themselves, the challenges continue. Inga M. Muscio's essay is the kind that grabs your heart and holds tight until the end as she rights about the death of her brother. She concludes, "Most always, healing is not a destination or an objective. Healing is a daily thought process, a series of infinite questions and choices, a kill that is not taught, much less revered, in our culture."

I don't mean to end on a depressing note, because I do believe this book is well worth reading for anyone, whatever gender, who has ever felt not all there, who has wanted art to save them but isn't sure it will do the trick, who has felt, even if they were surrounded by people who care, all alone. These authors get that and go there, to those places so many would rather avoid or pretend do not exist. By acknowledging that they do, sharing their stories, and, most of all, perhaps, not pretending to have all the answers, they prove themselves not "experts," but real, flawed, passionate, yet still brilliant, bold and creative people who have learned not everything, but something they can pass on to others.