Description
Description
Malén Denis's Lithium is a novel about what cannot be fully named or pinned down. "Language in this book," the author notes, "acts as a pharmakon--both poison and remedy--inviting the reader to navigate its ambivalence. I wrote it by following the golden thread of poetry and the echoes of psychoanalysis, letting the images lead rather than the plot." Lithium employs an especially potent, poetic language to convey love found and love lost (I'm waiting for news from you). It is a book blazing with bruised perceptions of the precarity of a life lived between jobs and between homes; it's a feverish work swinging from hope to despair, about trying drugs both prescribed and not, about migration, about cat-sitting, and about isolation, about the search for meaning and for happiness when both prove so elusive, and it is about summoning the strength to wrench oneself from indecision to action.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
Admirers of cross-genre works will find much to appreciate-- "Publishers Weekly"
A novel of skillfully wrought interiors.-- "Kirkus"
Malén Denis hypnotizes like the bright flames of burning lithium.-- "Babelio"
Lithium grapples with the unsayable.-- "Página 12"
Explosive lyricism.-- "Literaturbia"
Malén Denis's work is unlike any other in contemporary literature.-- "La Primera Piedra"
Simultaneous, contradictory sensations of fear and tension on the one hand, and utter repose on the other... Our narrator is worthy of empathy, but her self-imposed chaos makes sustained kindness toward her a near impossibility for family and acquaintances. What's a modern girl to do?--Tom Bowden "Book Beat"
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
New Directions Publishing Corporation
Pub date:
2026-02-10
Length:
144 pages
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