Constructing a Nervous System

A Memoir

By: Margo Jefferson

Narrated by: Karen Murray

Length: 5 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From "one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism" (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings) comes a memoir "as electric as the title suggests" (Maggie Nelson, author of On Freedom).

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Oprah Daily, The New Yorker, Washington Post, Vulture, Buzzfeed, Publishers Weekly

The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson has lived in the thrall of a cast of others—her parents and maternal grandmother, jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes, and stars. These are the figures who thrill and trouble her, and who have made up her sense of self as a person and as a writer. In her much-anticipated follow-up to Negroland, Jefferson brings these figures to life in a memoir of stunning originality, a performance of the elements that comprise and occupy the mind of one of our foremost critics.

In Constructing a Nervous System, Jefferson shatters her self into pieces and recombines them into a new and vital apparatus, 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 have peopled her past and accompanied her in her solitude, dramatized here like never before. Bing Crosby and Ike Turner are among the author’s alter egos. The sounds of a jazz LP emerge as the intimate and instructive 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.

The result is a wildly innovative work of depth and stirring beauty. It is defined by fractures and dissonance, longing and ecstasy, and a persistent searching. Jefferson interrogates her own self as well as the act of writing memoir, and probes the fissures at the center of American cultural life.

©2022 Margo Jefferson (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

WINNER OF THE FOLIO PRIZE

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE FINALIST

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: The New York Times, TIME, Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Observer, Vanity Fair, Bustle, Buzzfeed, and more

“An elegantly structured, ambitious work of cultural criticism.”—Roxane Gay, “My 2022 in Reading”

“The cadence of [Jefferson’s] writing is like chasing after the origins of jazz. It’s smooth and rough all at the same time. Free-flowing, yet meticulously calculated. Incredibly Black, incredibly cool. There is a velocity to her prose that can feel like it is circling prey, and the prey is passive comfort.”—Okayplayer, “Five Great Memoirs By People of Color Released in 2022”

“In her second memoir, Pulitzer Prize winner Margo Jefferson brilliantly interrogates and expands the form. . . . What emerges is a carefully woven tapestry of American life, brought together by Jefferson’s lyrical and electric prose.”—TIME, “The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2022”

I loved this book!

I read this book because I listened to her interview on the Roxane Gay Agenda. It did not disappoint. It is insightful and timely. I related to it on so many levels.

Excellent

I thoroughly enjoyed the way this author wave together, literary criticism with her biography. I totally agree with the conclusion that women need to earn their right to be tired.

Challenging essays

How often do I get a chance to read an author who has something noteworthy to say? She made me want to read her earlier work, Negroland. She made me want to listen to Ella Fitzgerald. She made me want to journal. I can’t wait to see what’s next from Margo Jefferson. As to the audiobook format, I am getting the print version so that I can re-read certain chapters.