Preview
  • Run Towards the Danger

  • Confrontations with a Body of Memory
  • By: Sarah Polley
  • Narrated by: Sarah Polley
  • Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (216 ratings)

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Run Towards the Danger

By: Sarah Polley
Narrated by: Sarah Polley
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Publisher's summary

“A visceral and incisive collection of six propulsive personal essays.” —Vanity Fair

*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club * New York Times Paperback Row*

From the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of
Women Talking and the acclaimed director and actor Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present

These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.

In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing. Each of these six essays captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance.”

Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger.

©2022 Sarah Polley (P)2022 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE 2022 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS * SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE * NOMINATED FOR THE 2023 HERITAGE TORONTO AWARDS * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book of 2022 by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club

One of
The Globe and Mail’s “Best books of 2022”

“Fascinating, harrowing, courageous, and deeply felt, these explorations of ‘dangerous stories,’ harmful past events, and trials of the soul speak to all who’ve encountered dark waters and have had to navigate them.” —Margaret Atwood via Twitter

“Sad to be done with [Sarah Polley]’s superb memoir, Run Towards the Danger, but very happy I read it. Fascinating life and beautifully and unflinchingly explored. Please read.” —Rob Delaney, actor and writer, via Twitter