The Wrong Way to Save Your Life

In this intellectually daring, viscerally intimate collection, Megan Stielstra interrogates her own fear in stories both personal and universal as she searches for a better way to live. The titular piece answers the question of what has value in our lives—which is no longer rhetorical when the Chicago apartment above her family’s bursts into flames. The essay “Here Is My Heart” details her close relationship with her father, a big-game hunter in Alaska who continues to climb mountains despite his heart problems, leading the author to dissect deer hearts in a poetic examination of mortality.Whether imagining the implications of open-carry laws on college campuses, recounting the story of losing her first home during the recession, or shining a light on the complexities of postpartum depression tangled with the fierce joys of motherhood, Stielstra’s work informs, impels, and embraces us all.