Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours
A transcendent memoir by poet Maria Mutch about the distances that can form between people who should be the closest of all—husband and wife, parent and child, lifelong friends and partners.

Unfolding over the witching hours between midnight and 6am, this moving and meditative book takes place during the two year period in which the author's son Gabriel, who is autistic and also has Down Syndrome, did not sleep through the night. Gabriel spends much of his life as a puzzling enigma to his parents, but when he becomes unlocked by jazz music, his mother finds herself taking him into jazz clubs at all hours of the night, where he becomes a favorite patron. There is a fierce beauty in the isolation that envelops these two people as they wait out the nighttime hours, which Mutch compares to the isolation of polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. His story, interwoven here, brings insight into the profound experience of physical isolation, and creates a shared language for the experience of feeling alone. Through these three main characters—mother, son, adventuring explorer—Mutch triangulates overlapping and layered themes of solitude that enlighten and uplift one another.
1115893435
Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours
A transcendent memoir by poet Maria Mutch about the distances that can form between people who should be the closest of all—husband and wife, parent and child, lifelong friends and partners.

Unfolding over the witching hours between midnight and 6am, this moving and meditative book takes place during the two year period in which the author's son Gabriel, who is autistic and also has Down Syndrome, did not sleep through the night. Gabriel spends much of his life as a puzzling enigma to his parents, but when he becomes unlocked by jazz music, his mother finds herself taking him into jazz clubs at all hours of the night, where he becomes a favorite patron. There is a fierce beauty in the isolation that envelops these two people as they wait out the nighttime hours, which Mutch compares to the isolation of polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. His story, interwoven here, brings insight into the profound experience of physical isolation, and creates a shared language for the experience of feeling alone. Through these three main characters—mother, son, adventuring explorer—Mutch triangulates overlapping and layered themes of solitude that enlighten and uplift one another.
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Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours

Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours

by Maria Mutch
Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours

Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours

by Maria Mutch

eBook

$12.99 

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Overview

A transcendent memoir by poet Maria Mutch about the distances that can form between people who should be the closest of all—husband and wife, parent and child, lifelong friends and partners.

Unfolding over the witching hours between midnight and 6am, this moving and meditative book takes place during the two year period in which the author's son Gabriel, who is autistic and also has Down Syndrome, did not sleep through the night. Gabriel spends much of his life as a puzzling enigma to his parents, but when he becomes unlocked by jazz music, his mother finds herself taking him into jazz clubs at all hours of the night, where he becomes a favorite patron. There is a fierce beauty in the isolation that envelops these two people as they wait out the nighttime hours, which Mutch compares to the isolation of polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. His story, interwoven here, brings insight into the profound experience of physical isolation, and creates a shared language for the experience of feeling alone. Through these three main characters—mother, son, adventuring explorer—Mutch triangulates overlapping and layered themes of solitude that enlighten and uplift one another.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781476702766
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 03/25/2014
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 224
File size: 7 MB

About the Author

Maria Mutch is a Canadian writer whose memoir, Know the Night, was a finalist for both the Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and was listed in The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 and MacLean’s Best Reads. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Malahat Review, and Poets & Writers. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two sons. Visit her at www.mariamutch.com or follow her on Twitter @maria_mutch.

Table of Contents

[the first crossing] a prologue xiii

Midnight: spells 1

1 a.m.: desire 45

2 a.m.: soul 73

3 a.m.: white 109

4 a.m.: delirium 139

5 a.m.: rescue 175

Notes on Quoted Material 202

Credits and Acknowledgments 203

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