Feverland: A Memoir in Shards

by Alex Lemon

Brain surgery. Assault weapons in the bed of a pickup truck. Rilke, Rodin, and the craters of the moon. Recovery and disintegration. Monkeys stealing an egg outside a temple in Kathmandu. Brushing teeth bloody on long car rides. Pain, ours and what we bring to others. Wildfires in southern California. Rats in Texas. Childhood abuse. Dreams of tigers and blackout nights. The sweetness of mangoes. A son born into a shadowy hospital room. Love. Joy.

In Feverland, Alex Lemon has created a fragmented exploration of what it means to be a man in the tumult of twenty-first-century America―and a harrowing, associative memoir about how we live with the beauties and horrors of our pasts. How to be here, now? Lemon asks. How to be here, good? Immersed in darkness but shot through with light, this is a thrillingly experimental memoir from one of our most heartfelt and inventive writers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

312 pages, Paperback

Published September 19, 2017

About the author

Alex Lemon's poetry collections include Hallelujah Blackout (2008 Milkweed Editions) and Mosquito (Tin House Books 2006). A memoir is also forthcoming from Scribner. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous magazines including AGNI, BOMB, Denver Quarterly Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Pleiades and Tin House. Among his awards are a 2005 Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2006 Minnesota Arts Board Grant. He is the co-editor of LUNA: A Journal of Poetry and Translation and is a frequent contributor to The Bloomsbury Review. He teaches in the English Department at TCU in Fort Worth, TX.

Reviews

[Christie Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is abundantly creative and smart. In some places it reads like poetry while in others it seems to be streams of consciousness. Perhaps the greatest compliment that I can offer is that the writing was inspiring and caused me to start writing again. I was most moved by the intense vulnerability and honesty that takes guts to write out. Often it’s hard enough to think through pain this deep, let alone confess it to all. I felt a greater understanding of the writer after reading and felt a great connection to his journey.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book went from four stars to five, when Lemon wrote, ". . . boring, like hate is a word we don't use in our house."

You know how conversations with friends from diverse backgrounds, one being a historian, one a scientist, one a writer, one in construction, for example, wander from topic to topic, at times personal, at times philosophical, at times seemingly random, at times more concrete - that's one way of describing what it was like reading Lemon's book.

It also reminded me of getting lost on the internet, moving from article to article, clicking on links, getting lost in information you didn't start out looking for, only with passages about Lemon's life interjected in between: Lemon would be telling you about his childhood, and in a stream of consciousness approach, something he wrote would remind him of say Van Gogh or Tom Cruise or Cambodia. And he'd go off on a tangent before returning to another biographical episode - a description of his interior life, an experience, or something about his parents, etc.

Lemon's writing, at first, brought to mind My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgard. Only I found his writing, the structure, and the topics he wrote about more engaging and imaginative. Compared to My Struggle, Feverland is less plodding and less about the minutiae of daily life. It's a book I would read again.

[Carol Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't the kind of memoir I usually read and there were times when I thought I should just stop and take it back to the library. I'm glad I persevered. I'm used to reading quite a few pages every day but with Feverland, I found that reading it ten pages or so at a time worked best for me. Actually, more than that was just too much. There are so many things going on in Lemon's life - a medical condition that took a long time to diagnose and treat, childhood sexual abuse at a very young age, horrifying dreams, strange experiences - and yet he got through it, got married, had two lovely children and became a professor with a nice career as a writer. Lemon went to college at Macalaster in St. Paul, Minnesota and is published by Milkweed Editions a Minnesota company. Those local links are probably what got me interested as well as a review in the Star Tribune. I'm glad I took a chance on Feverland. It was well worth it!

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Shards” imply something shattered, and indeed, you do understand reading this memoir that something was shattered in this narrator’s life. The book starts out with a narrative of severe illness and fragility–a brain tumor–but you soon learn of physical abuse and mental illness as well. The narrator has traveled all over the world and read a great deal too, but there is darkness overshadowing much of his experience. I had a difficult time figuring out when was the right time to read this book, because next to his beautiful reflections would be a description of torture or animal suffering. I couldn't read it at mealtimes or bedtime. I would have put the book down for good, but the beauty of his writing and the quality of wonder in it drew me back over and over again. Proceed with caution.

[Joe Wheelock · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first it was hard to buy into Lemon’s style. It reads almost as a blend of poetry and a stream of consciousness retelling of a story. But about 1/4 I found myself enamored and couldn’t put it down. He weaves raw emotion and imagery seamlessly together. Strongly recommend.

[Trip Starkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the writer, love the man. This is an absolute must-read.

[Jessica]

Feverland is a memoir in essay form by Alex Lemon. It is excruciatingly painful and blissfully joyful. My favorite part of this is how beautifully Lemon captures the surreal-ness of real life.

[Dmflinsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A touching and vulnerable memoir of an existence through pain, trauma, and gratitude

[Tekla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depressing. Disturbing. Effective. Brave. Painful to read.

[Jacob Hoefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alex Lemon's Feverland is a powerhouse of a memoir. Weaving essays about different points in his tumultuous life together forming a truly compelling narative.
From his strugle as a victim of abuse, to his health problems, to his anxiety as a new father.
Each chapter is written in a unique and elegant prose that really pulls you through the story of his life.
Alex Lemon is honest, unflinching, and has a lot to offer as a poet and author.