"A visceral and incisive collection of six propulsive personal essays." - Vanity Fair *Named a Most-Anticipated Book of 2022 by
Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and
AV Club*
Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, and actor Sarah Polley's
Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present
These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven't told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry. Sarah Polley's work as an actor, screenwriter, and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity, and deep humanity. She brings all those qualities, along with her exquisite storytelling chops, to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley's life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a "reciprocal pressure dance."
Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger.
In this extraordinary book, Polley explores what it is to live in one's body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing.
Author: Sarah Polley
Publisher: Penguin Press
Published: 03/01/2022
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 9.06h x 6.06w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780593300350
Review Citation(s): Library Journal Prepub Alert 10/01/2021 pg. 23
About the Author
Sarah Polley is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director and actor. After making short films such as The Best Day of My Life (1999) and I Shout Love (2003), Polley made her feature length directorial debut with the drama film Away from Her in 2006. Polley received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay, which she adapted from the Alice Munro story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." Her other projects include the documentary film Stories We Tell (2012), the miniseries adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel, Alias Grace (2017), and the romantic-comedy Take This Waltz (2011). Polley began her acting career as a child, starring in The Road to Avonlea (1990 - 1996) and Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).
