Dog Days

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Dog Days unfolds in the long shadow of freak violence—where language stammers, time loops, and the body remembers what the mind can't. "An incandescent book, a landmark in how to bring language to bear on the unspeakable. Beautiful, uncompromising, rigorous and totally original."— Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City In 2009, Emily LaBarge and her family were held hostage while on vacation. A crocheted blanket was placed over her head while Mrs. Doubtfire and "Agnus Dei" played on repeat. In the years that follow, a therapist encourages her to lie in exactly the same position, "just like how it happened, for as long as it happened, and for as long as it takes until the pain comes out"—otherwise it will never leave. She tries to find "the good story": neat, polite, reassuring. But what happens to the things the good story leaves out? A high-voltage synthesis of memoir, criticism, and psychoanalytic