How to Be Afraid: A Memoir and Investigation [9781644454626]

Overview

A visceral and keenly researched excavation of fear following a carjacking and court case, this debut memoir traces the author’s recovery from PTSD and unsettles the victim-offender binary

On a clear September morning, Lia Greenwell stopped at a gas station in a tiny Michigan town and was robbed at gunpoint by a man withdrawing from heroin. After he stole her car and was found the same day, it seemed that all had been restored. Back home in Detroit, Greenwell tried to resume her life: going to work, writing, and house hunting with her partner. The carjacking, she tried to convince herself, was not a big deal—after all, she had not been physically harmed. But the fear she thought would pass instead took root in her body, distorting her sense of the world until real and imagined danger became impossible to parse.

How to Be Afraid is a lyrical and immersive account of Greenwell’s struggle with PTSD, a reckoning with the criminal justice system through her experience in the courts as a victim, and an expansive investigation of fear and safety. Through the lenses of psychology, sociology, art, and literature, Greenwell asks: What happens when our bodily response overrides what we believe is logical or just? Whom do we consider a victim, and what do we offer and expect from them? How might we seek collective rather than individual safety? Full of insights into the consequences of our perceptions, the devastating impacts of opioid addiction, and the real possibilities offered by harm reduction and prison abolition, this courageous and hopeful book is for anyone who has been afraid.