Fusing essay, poetry and provocative prose, this hybrid work is an emotionally complex portrayal of loss and resurrection. The book ranges from memoir through myth to the overlapping lives of past artists in a fractal narrative traversing interior and exterior landscapes. In a brisk and unflinching account of the death of the narrator’s mother, the reader descends into the subterranean realms of grief as the loss unfurls into interconnected and unexpected stories of the underworld. From Eurydice’s indifferent return to Orpheus to a poet`s regret for the ghost that haunts him, each story is rich with the resonances in-between. Written in simple yet elegant prose, it is a story about emergence and the struggle to come alive. The result is a text as intense and urgent as the heartbeat the author is seeking.

Renée Thorne is an author and artist based in Basel, Switzerland. Her work spans from lyric essays and literary journalism to texts rooted in a performative practice. Renée has recently finished an M.A. in Transdisciplinary Studies at Zürich University of the Arts (ZHdK).