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by Courtney Denelle
Rosemary Candwell's past has exploded into her present.
Down-and-out and deteriorating, she drifts from anonymous beds and bars in Providence, to a homeless shelter hidden among the hedge-rowed avenues of Newport, and through the revolving door of service jobs and quick-fix psychiatric care, always grasping for hope, for a solution. Will she find it?
Desperate to readjust back into a family and a world that has deemed her a crazy bitch living a choice they believe she could simply un-choose at any time, she endures flashbacks and panic attacks, migraines and nightmares. She can't sleep or she sleeps for days; she lashes out at anyone and everyone, especially herself. She abuses over-the-counter cold medicine and guzzles down anything caffeinated just to feel less alone.
What if her family is right?
What if she is truly broken beyond repair?
Drawn from the author's experience of homelessness and trauma recovery, It's Not Nothing is a collage of small moments, biting jokes, intrusive memories, and quiet epiphanies meant to reveal a greater truth: Resilience never looks the way we expect it to look.
"It's Not Nothing is more than a book. It's an act of survival, and in its creation, proof positive that art not only matters, but can be a profound part of becoming whole. In this debut, Courtney Denelle writes like her life depends on it, and I believe her." —Rachel Yoder, author of Night Bitch
"It's Not Nothing's exquisite prose animates the lamentation-celebration that saturates the complicated experience of having a heart and a body. The revelations tucked into the details of this story hum through a plurality of intensities. Courtney Denelle is up to incredible things. I'd follow her voice anywhere." —Selah Saterstrom, author of Ideal Suggestions and Rancher
"It's Not Nothing introduces us to a dazzling, irreverent, assured voice that brings to life those invisibled by the ravages of our modern, indifferent world. With prismatic sensibility, Courtney Denelle's stunning debut collages the delirium of daily survival in sparse, vivid prose, often veering into poetry." —Su Hwang, author of Bodega
This information about It's Not Nothing was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Courtney Denelle is a writer and photographer from Providence, Rhode Island. She has been awarded residencies from Hedgebrook and the Jentel Foundation, and received her greater education from the public library. It's Not Nothing is her first novel.
My Darling Boy by John Dufresne
The story of of a man whose son collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida.
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