LoveReading Says
Whether it's fear of the threat of violence, fear of loss when a loved one falls ill, or fear of never finding love again amidst heartbreak, this multifaceted emotion can appear in all aspects of our lives and society. Used for marketing, media propaganda and in defence of a gender binary it can be a powerful tool. In our private lives it can leave us at our most vulnerable, “Fear is inevitable and persistent and a mark of being human”.
Christiana Spens’ bold and honest memoir explores her own experiences with this core human emotion. In her life Spens has lost a boyfriend to an overdose, been a victim of rape, studied fear on a larger scale during a Masters in Terrorism Studies and lost her father after an extended illness. Throughout The Fear, her experiences are woven with critical, philosophical study, self-reflections and the contemplation of art and politics to ultimately deliver a message of love, “ground oneself in the real love that also exists, in whichever way one finds it, is also in our reality, and it is as persistent and available as fear, shame and detachment”.
At once cerebral and vulnerable, Spens’ memoir offers both psychological study and a helping hand on a topic that's relatable to us all. The combination of personal experience and an almost academic study encouraged me to reflect on my own experiences of fear, the distancing, dissociative patterns that are so tempting to fall into while not quite facing it enough to heal. As a critical study, it engaged my brain and appealed to my need to explain away the mystery. As a personal memoir, it spoke to me with a message of hope and a lasting reminder that we’re never alone.
Charlotte Walker
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The Fear Synopsis
A philosophical memoir about the deepest and most primal of human emotions, how it controls us all, and how we try to control one another when the stakes are so high.
The Fear is a book about what scares us the most, how we live with these threats, and the emotional turmoil they inspire.
From gas-lighting to terrorism, and from scapegoating to psychoanalysis, The Fear stares deep into the abyss, searching for the monsters, horrors and spectres that destabilise and haunt us, and finding out what these fears—and how we respond to them—shape us as people and societies.
The Fear is a personal and critical exploration of fear and its impact in public and private lives, revealing how our cultural landscape informs and even justifies the way we relate to one another, and how it can set us free. Combining memoir with philosophical reflection on terrorism, psychology, relationships and culture, The Fear is a multi-faceted and poetic response to a subject that plagues us all.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781914420450 |
| Publication date: |
14th March 2023 |
| Author: |
Christiana Spens |
| Publisher: |
Repeater Books an imprint of Watkins Media Limited |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
300 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Biographies & Autobiographies
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| Other Genres: |
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Christiana Spens Press Reviews
“Made up of equal parts pain, intimacy, desolation and tenderness, The Fear extracts beauty and meaning from a reckoning with great private darkness.” - Rob Doyle, author of Threshold
“The Fear considers how trauma manifests in ways that seem too powerful to tolerate and how it can seem that emotion could be traded or outran by another equally strong emotion, like love. A brilliant look at the maze of personal history and how the wounds we carry will continue to make their journey through us, one way or another.” - Jenni Fagan, author of Luckenbooth and The Panopticon
"The Fear is an astonishing book. Spens manages to weave a hybrid tapestry, in which we move fluidly between memoir, philosophy, art and politics. The result is a book that takes us to the edge, lets us look into the abyss, makes us confront a myriad array of fears and their consequences. It is a bold, beautiful and brave book; in it's form, in the lyricism of its style and in the intensity of its interrogations. At the level of intellectual curiosity, psychological honesty and political urgency it is a text of staggering depth and variety. Spens writes a text that will speak to us all, to the fears that sit heavy on our chests. The result, rather surprisingly, is a book that makes us feel a little less alone, that seems to lift the fear a little, to let us breath fresh air." - Tom de Freston, author of Wreck
“The Fear is a hybrid memoir and cultural study, which uses the personal to reach into the depths of the psychology of fear. Artist and writer Christiana Spens explores how fear impacts our lives – from the personal to the political, through gender politics to terrorism – reffering to images, art, films, philosophy and more. The memoir aspect is written with intellectual detachment creating almost a fable of fear, that space 'between fear and anxiety' — at once a psychological study and an intimate portrayal of a woman making sense of the world. It is a finely tuned, fascinating interrogation of an emotion that hijacks us all. Both intimate and psychologically rigorous, The Fear pushes the bounds of memoir into intellectual territory.” - Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling
"Intellectually vivifying and deeply moving, The Fear is a dazzling memoir that dances between the cerebral and the tender." - Sam Mills, author of The Fragments of my Father
"Spens writes beautifully about self-government… the writing is so wonderfully strong about fragility... Read and heal. Never heel to another, mind you.” - Kirsty Allison, Ambit Magazine
“Spens writes herself back to life – and it is a joy to behold.” - Andrew Gallix, The Irish Times
“A powerfully affecting tale of devastation and survival."- Matt Rowland Hill, The Spectator
“For such a cerebral book, it is also tender and humane; Spens counterbalances her intellectual considerations with moments of stark honesty, and it is touching to see her find inner calm toward the end of the book. It is also a testament to her talent that, although she is dealing with heavy subjects, the reader feels lighter for having taken the journey with her. The Fear deserves a wide readership.”- Joshua Rees, Buzzmag
