"In Constructing a Nervous System, Jefferson shatters her self into pieces and recombines them into a new and vital apparatus on the page, fusing the criticism that she is known for, fragments of the family members she grieves for and signal moments from her life, as well as the words of those who accompanied her in her solitude, dramatized here as never before. Bing Crosby and Ike Turner are among the author's alter egos. The sounds of a jazz LP emerge as the intimate sounds of a parent's voice. W. E. B. Du Bois and George Eliot meet illicitly. The muscles and movements of a ballerina are spliced with those of an Olympic runner, becoming a template for what a black female body can be ... Jefferson interrogates her own self as well as the act of writing memoir, and probes the fissures at the center of American cultural life"--Dust jacket flap.
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