Setting the Wire: A Memoir of Postpartum Psychosis
Setting the Wire is a memoir of postpartum psychosis and a meditation on containment: what we hold and what holds us together. A lyric exploration of motherhood, mental illness, and familial ties, Sarah C. Townsend’s debut work weaves together personal anecdote, film, music, visual art, and psychology. Setting the Wire is a visceral reflection on the experience of fragmentation as a young psychotherapist and new mother.
"Taut, lyrical, wise writing.” – Claire Dederer, author of Love and Trouble
"Townsend drops us masterfully into a state of mind almost over the edge but never completely." – Theo Pauline Nestor, author of Writing Is My Drink
“This memoir has . . . water and earth. Body and mind. Something like ‘a shard’ between.” – Bhanu Kapil
Buy Setting the Wire
2019 | 136 pp | 978-1-7335499-0-5
Excerpt
As a child, I grieve during the intermission of a ballet. One less act remaining.
After speaking to my therapist for a period of time, I grow silent. I ask her to tell me when we’ve reached the halfway mark in the hour, the hour that is actually only fifty minutes long.
Early on in therapy, I research termination.
I seem to be preoccupied with endings.
Reviews & Interviews
Interview with Cat Brooks at UpFront on KPFA (NPR)
Interview with Cameron Dezen Hammon on the The Ish podcast
Interview with Sheila Hamilton on the Beyond Well podcast
Interview with Angelisa Russo at Literary Mama
Interview with Melanie Sweeney at the Chicago Review of Books
Review by Alexandra Panic at Pif Magazine
Review by Sara McCrea at Wesleyan University
Review by Cynthia Rockwell at Wesleyan University