Disequilibria - (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize) by Robert Lunday (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize Series

Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness is a hybrid memoir that recounts the 1982 disappearance of the author's stepfather, James Edward Lewis, a pilot and Vietnam veteran. Recounting his family's experiences in searching for answers, Lunday interrogates the broader cultural and conceptual responses to the phenomenon of missingness by connecting his stepfather's case to other true-life disappearances as well as those portrayed in fiction, poetry, and film. In doing so Disequilibria explores the transience in modern life, considering the military-dependent experience, the corrosive effects of war, and the struggle to find closure and comfort as time goes by without answers.

Review Quotes

Elliptical prose . . .moving . . .elegiac.--Publishers Weekly

This haunting, engrossing, superbly written memoir is full of revelations and mysteries: a kind of prose epic of the missing. Chockful of Americana, it is also marbled with uncanny literary references: Robert Lunday seems to have read everything and put it to good use. His intelligence makes this book shine.--Phillip Lopate, author of A Mother's Tale

About the Author

Robert Lunday is a professor of English at Houston Community College. He is also author of Mad Flights and Gnome.