On Immunity: An Inoculation

Eula Biss

ISBN 10: 1555977200 / ISBN 13: 9781555977207

Published by Graywolf Press, 2015

About this Item

A New York Times Best SellerA National Book Critics Circle Award FinalistA New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the YearA Facebook Year of Books SelectionOne of the Best Books of the Year* National Book Critics Circle Award finalist * The New York Times Book Review (Top 10) * Entertainment Weekly (Top 10) * New York Magazine (Top 10)* Chicago Tribune (Top 10) * Publishers Weekly (Top 10) * Time Out New York (Top 10) * Los Angeles Times * Kirkus * Booklist * NPR's Science Friday * Newsday * Slate * Refinery 29 * And many more.Why do we fear vaccines? A provocative examination by Eula Biss, the author of Notes from No Man's Land, winner of the National Book Critics Circle AwardUpon becoming a new mother, Eula Biss addresses a chronic condition of fear-fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what is in your child's air, food, mattress, medicine, and vaccines. She finds that you cannot immunize your child, or yourself, from the world. In this bold, fascinating book, Biss investigates the metaphors and myths surrounding our conception of immunity and its implications for the individual and the social body. As she hears more and more fears about vaccines, Biss researches what they mean for her own child, her immediate community, America, and the world, both historically and in the present moment. She extends a conversation with other mothers to meditations on Voltaire's Candide, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Susan Sontag's AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond. On Immunity is a moving account of how we are all interconnected-our bodies and our fates.

Seller Inventory # CIN1555977200G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: On Immunity: An Inoculation
• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555977200
• ISBN 13: 9781555977207
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

“On Immunity is a book I’ve recommended too many times to count―a searching, empathetic, ultimately unassailable argument, not just for vaccination but for thoroughly acknowledging our interdependence, and for all that becomes necessary and possible once we do. Written before COVID, it nonetheless speaks directly to the concerns of the pandemic era―to the fact that we are dangerous as well as vulnerable, to the way collective well-being and individual self-interest are configured at odds to one another when they are fundamentally intertwined.”―Jia Tolentino

In this bold, fascinating book, Eula Biss addresses our fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what may be in our children's air, food, mattresses, medicines, and vaccines. Reflecting on her own experience as a new mother, she suggests that we cannot immunize our children, or ourselves, against the world. As she explores the metaphors surrounding immunity, Biss extends her conversations with other mothers to meditations on the myth of Achilles, Voltaire's Candide, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Susan Sontag's AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond. On Immunity is an inoculation against our fear and a moving account of how we are all interconnected-our bodies and our fates.

About the Author

EULA BISS is the author of The Balloonists. She teaches nonfiction writing at Northwestern University and is co-editor of Essay Press. Her essays have appeared in Harper's and The Believer. She lives in Chicago.