Pain Studies

October 21, 2019
This nonfiction debut from poet Olstein (Late Empire), on her lifelong struggles with migraines, proves an allusive, sometimes obscure, but more often fascinating meditation. Crucial to Olstein’s endeavor is what she identifies as pain’s indescribable quality, and the impossibility of translating sensory perception directly into language. Thus, she offers relatively few descriptions of the physical experience of having a migraine, other than a mock-diagnostic list of non–pain-related symptoms, and instead explores what other writers, such as Virginia Woolf, or cultural touchstones such as Joan of Arc, reveal about chronic pain. Some of the associations she draws—such as to Joan—aren’t entirely clear, though Olstein suggests that she and the saint share in common similar experiences with “perception, hallucination, and, it seems a safe bet, great pain.” But the relevance of other associations are more readily apparent. Describing the title character on TV’s House, who suffers from chronic pain as a result of muscle death in his thigh, Olstein muses whether “his genius is linked to his pain,” reflecting back to her own avocation as a writer. This extended lyric essay succeeds in delivering an intriguing look at a set of questions with wide relevance to an audience beyond migraine-sufferers: “Does our pain define us? Only if it’s bad enough? Only if we let it?”

December 15, 2019
A meandering yet erudite exploration of the representation of chronic pain in history and popular culture. Olstein (English/Univ. of Texas; Late Empire, 2017, etc.) suffers from chronic migraines. In total, she estimates, she has had a headache for 9.5 years of her life. Throughout this slim, perceptive book, she wrestles with the challenge of expressing something that is essentially indescribable: "all pain" is "unknowable except while being lived." As a poet, the author employs lyrical language ("left brow like a pressed bruise, an overripe peach you accidentally stuck your fingers into; top of head a china vase in a vise tightening, all angled echo and clamor") as well as rhetorical questions and litanies in the attempt to characterize her pain. She includes alarmingly extensive lists of incidental migraine symptoms, medicines and therapies she has tried ("our fickle, beloved cures"), and side effects she has experienced. Her surprising points of reference range from Antiphon, the ancient philosopher who taught pain avoidance, to the TV show House, which starred a pain pill-gobbling misanthrope who solved medical mysteries. It's harder to appreciate the relevance of a long discussion of Joan of Arc. Olstein seems to take Joan as a model for women speaking out in defense of their subjective experiences (in Joan's case, hearing voices). All the same, the passages from her trial transcript are overlong. In general, Olstein relies too much on quotations from other thinkers--though, surprisingly, not Susan Sontag. While the book joins a conversation rekindled by Anne Boyer, Leslie Jamison, and other contemporary authors, it is not quite as memorable as its antecedents. Still, Olstein's blending of the personal and the academic is compelling, and her themes of catharsis, denial, and causality are well worth exploring. "Does our pain define us?" she asks. Ultimately, she concludes that pain has no essential meaning and is all up to chance. Yet there is dignity in resisting it--and in capturing it in words. A quality addition to the literature on pain.

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February 1, 2020

Poet and writer Olstein (English, Univ. of Texas at Austin; Lost Alphabet) has experienced migraines for much of her life, and this work seeks to express the complex experience of chronic pain by connecting philosophy, popular culture, and personal narratives. Olstein's writing grabs readers' attention, even those without a history of chronic illness, and begins by offering a tour through the history of pain. Drawing on the experiences of figures such as Joan of Arc and TV's House M.D., the author captures the unexplored and misunderstood world of chronic pain. Olstein criticizes Oliver Sacks's Migraine for its subjective analysis and presumptions of living with migraines. This work differs in that its analysis spans multiple perspectives and includes Olstein's sincere recollections, making this extended lyrical essay shine. VERDICT Unique in its exploration of the relentlessness of chronic pain, this work succeeds because of creative and candid elaborations on something that is common but difficult to describe. Those living with chronic pain and their caregivers will find Olstein's personal voyage through pain to be enlightening--Rich McIntyre Jr., UConn Health Sciences Lib., Farmington, CT

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