Offering a fresh and vital perspective that seeks to inform the national conversation on trauma, PTSD, and survivorship, The Answer Is in the Wound casts a light on a culture in which violence against women is rationalized and asks how we can change it. The Answer Is in the Wound is also a direct response to the notion that there can ever, really be closure for survivors, and if closure is truly necessary, shifting the conversation instead to new beginnings. Consisting of a mix of previously published and unpublished essays, those previously published have been featured in Alaska Quarterly Review , Guernica , Gay Magazine , The Rumpus , and notable mentions in the Best American Essay series. The essay "Ritchie County Mall," published in Gay Magazine , elicited a strong response from actress Gabrielle Union, who tweeted: "This is truly one of the best essays I've read in a loooooong time and it LANDED. Whew, please please please give this a read and sit with these words. Thank you, truly!!!!!" The collection unfolds in five sections: Captivity, Rupture, The Problem, Love & Rage, and After. The essays in each reflect the ways Kelly wrote through the different stages of PTSD. Woven throughout is a series of interstitials where research from trauma theory is incorporated, but The Answer Is in the Wound is ultimately grounded in the personal, which distinguishes it from other PTSD books on the market.
Memoirs on PTSD and trauma have strong critical response and footing in the market, such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D., which sold over 150,000 copies in hardcover and nearly 3 million in paperback. For readers of In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison, and The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang, The Answer Is in the Wound sheds light on the long lasting effects of trauma in a society that infrequently understands what it feels like to heal after abuse. Kelly Sundberg published Goodbye, Sweet Girl , a memoir on her long, difficult awakening to the violence of her abusive marriage with Harper in 2018. This is the second nonfiction book published Roxane Gay Books, one of the most talked-about new imprint launches of recent years. Roxane will be putting her support behind every book she publishes, and is the author of several books, including the national bestseller Bad Feminist and the New York Times bestseller Hunger . She also has a newsletter, The Audacity , and a podcast, The Roxane Gay Agenda .
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