REVIEW: Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
It comes as no surprise to anyone who’s read the critically acclaimed memoir Whip Smart that Melissa Febos is a master of personal narrative. Published in 2010, Whip Smart was an autobiographical account of Febos’s years as a New York City dominatrix. In her latest publication, Body Work, Febos unearths to readers how she discovered the key to her craft: through healing her emotional wounds by finding freedom within the pen.
The fourth published book in Febos’s collection, Body Work consists of four essays that each explore a different powerful aspect of what personal narrative looks like when abandoning the confines of societal expectation.
The powerful opener, “In Praise of Navel Gazing,” discusses how stories of trauma and the insertion of “self” are deemed “overdone” by literary standards—especially when they are women’s experiences—and how to break away from that line of thinking. This section blew me away, and I recommended this book to at least four people before even finishing the chapter. Febos has a way of speaking directly to her readers about what validity means in terms of women writing about their experiences that makes me feel so seen.
“Mind Fuck” takes readers through the keys to writing real sex—honest, uncomfortable, wordily written sex—as well as uncovering their own pleasure along the way. For me, this section highlighted how writing without societally-imposed rules can uncover an honest line of thinking about one's own experiences with pleasure. Febos includes some of her favorite erotic scenes– those that she feels have written about sex realistically while still drawing readers in.
“My primary argument is that whatever the contemporary associations with memoir or personal narrative or confession or therapeutic elements of making art, when we write this way we are performing a process that predates those biases by centuries.”
“A Big Shitty Party” is a medium that allows Febos to discuss the aftermath of writing details of her personal life. Specifically, Febos takes readers through her decision-making process when writing real people and the lines she’s learned not to cross. The final essay, “The Return,” is rooted in what confession means to Febos and to the reader—what it means to confess not only on the page but also to oneself. This felt like the perfect closer for a book that was both emotional and guiding.
Body Work encourages women to tell stories of the real trials they face—trials such as abuse and sexual trauma—without worries that they've been heard too many times. Melissa Febos believes they will never be heard enough. Body Work begs readers to write with more honesty than they’ve ever allowed themselves. That is what Febos believes will always be worth reading.
Body Work is a book about personal narrative, but it is equally a book about the mile-wide intersection of trauma and womanhood and how writers can find their voices.
“I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating: the resistance to memoirs about trauma is always in part—and often nothing but—a resistance to movements for social justice.”
If you have read Febos’s work before, you will find yourself tracing her advice back to each word of her previous essay collections and memoir. In each essay, Febos adds bits of the experience she had writing her first memoir and shares how each published book shaped her view of writing with honesty. If you haven’t read Febos before, you will find yourself inspired by the end of this read—both to write without fear of self-indulgence and to devour more of her work. Personally, I found myself drifting back to old narratives I’ve written and considering whether I had been writing a character or writing myself. I considered whether my work lives up to Febos’s final words:
“Every single thing I’ve created worth a damn has been a practice of love, healing, and redemption. I know this process to be divine.”