Floyd Skloot

In December 1988 Floyd Skloot was stricken by a virus that targeted his brain, leaving him totally disabled and utterly changed. In the Shadow of Memory is an intimate picture of what it is like to find oneself possessed of a ravaged memory and unstable balance and confronted by wholesale changes in both cognitive and emotional powers. Skloot also explores the gradual reassembling of himself, putting together his scattered memories, rediscovering the meaning of childhood and family history, and learning a new way to be at home in the world. Combining the author?s skills as a poet and novelist, this book finds humor, meaning, and hope in the story of a fragmented life made whole by love and the courage to thrive.

In the Shadow of Memory

The author of In the Shadow of Memory and A World of Light uncovers a unique and telling perspective on the forging of a writer's individual sensibility in a memoir that explores fundamental questions about how life shapes the creative spirit and how the writer makes sense of it all.

The Shaping of a Writer's Life

The Wink of the Zenith

From the winner of the 2004 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction In his award-winning memoir "In the Shadow of Memory," Floyd Skloot told the hard story of coming to terms with a brain-ravaging virus. "A World of Light," written with the same insight, passion, and humor that distinguished the earlier volume, moves Skloot's story from the reassembly of a self after neurological calamity to the reconstruction of a shattered life. More than fifteen years after a viral attack compromised his memory and cognitive powers, Skloot now must do the vital work of recreating a cohesive life for himself even as he confronts the late stages of his mother's advancing dementia. With tenderness and candor, he finds surprising connection with her where it had long been missing, transforming the end of her life into a time of unexpected renewal. At the same time, Skloot and his wife are building a rich new life at the center of a small isolated forest on a hillside in rural Oregon, where a dwindling water supply and the bitter assaults of the weather bring an elemental perspective to his attempts to make himself once more at home in the world. By turns poignant, funny, and frightening, "A World of Light" balances the urgency to capture fragmented, fleeting memories with the necessity of living fully in the present.

A World of Light

Jesse Cohen

Rebecca Skloot

Edited by Rebecca Skloot, award-winning science writer and New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and her father, Floyd Skloot, an award-winning poet and writer, and past contributor to the series, The Best American Science Writing 2011 collects into one volume the most crucial, thought-provoking, and engaging science writing of the year. Culled from a wide variety of publications, these selections of outstanding journalism cover the full spectrum of scientific inquiry, providing a comprehensive overview of the most compelling, relevant, and exciting developments in the world of science. Provocative and engaging, The Best American Science Writing 2011 reveals just how far science has brought us—and where it is headed next.

Floyd Skloot

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