The start of this book idea was eight or nine years ago when I wrote a poem that was meant to shame me. Marisa Crane: It’s probably weird to say that I love talking or thinking about shame-but it’s been so prominent in my life for my whole life. Rebecca Ackermann: What was the first seed of this book that felt urgent to get out into the world? Crane and I spoke over Zoom about the early days of parenthood, the innate need for community, and all the ways shame can keep us stuck. In a fragmented and intimate style that evokes writers like Sheila Heti and Jenny Offill, Crane allows Kris to explore all the corners of grief, love, desire and hope as she finds a way to forgive herself and reinvent her family’s form. The book is speculative in the way that Octavia Butler’s Kindred is speculative: the premise pushes on the limits of reality only to bring us closer to understanding our own relationships. As if that weren’t hard enough, Kris and her child both wear an extra Shadow, the physical brand that the “Department of Balance” attaches to anyone they deem a threat to the status quo. In Exoskeletons we meet Kris, a new mother struggling to see a future for herself and her kid in the wake of her partner’s sudden death.
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