No Contact - by Jenny Bartoy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A poignant and galvanizing anthology that illuminates the realities and nuances of family estrangement, with pieces by Stephanie Foo, Nick Flynn, Deesha Philyaw, Cheryl Strayed, and others

Estrangement presents an essential existential question: who are we without our family? What kind of person cuts the proverbial umbilical cord and why? And who do we become, once untethered from our kin?

Families fall apart and individuals cut ties for myriad reasons--abuse, politics, mental illness, and addiction, among others--and reunification often is not in the cards. Estrangement can be a positive change, as Emi Nietfeld explains in her essay about finding relief and logic after cutting off her mother. It can be a journey: noam keim rebuilds their sense of self by learning Arabic in their ancestral homeland of Morocco, while Nicole Graev Lipson searches for answers in literature and motherhood after her brother ghosts her. Other writers explore how estrangement complicates life's big shifts--Domenica Ruta traces the repercussions of severing ties while battling from cancer; Hannah Bae reels from the prospect of cultural alienation when she cuts off her Korean parents; and after twenty years of separation, Soni Brown reluctantly becomes her mother's caretaker as dementia erases her memory.

Through thirty-two intimate, first-person accounts, No Contact counters the prevalent trope of reconciliation as a happy ending, focusing instead on the complex grief, healing, and authenticity found in the rupture from family.

About the Author

JENNY BARTOY is a French American developmental editor and book critic. Her work appears in several anthologies and in publications such as The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Under the Gum Tree, Room, Chicago Review of Books, CrimeReads, The Rumpus, and others. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and holds an MA from Columbia University. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and three children.