Places I’ve Taken My Body: Essays

Known as a gifted poet, Molly McCully Brown shows off her talent for writing illuminating nonfiction as well in her first collection of essays. The seventeen pieces that comprise the book offer a window into Brown’s life as a writer and disabled woman growing up in Virginia, traveling abroad, and moving from place to place. Brown provides a nuanced picture of her complex relationship to her body and to herself as she recounts such experiences as traversing the largely inaccessible streets of Bologna, visiting a Virginia institution that historically sterilized disabled people, and, in a striking final essay, watching a ballet adaptation of Frankenstein.

Brown’s poetic background shines through in her prose—each sentence is musical and feels as though it has been carefully and lovingly crafted. Though Brown writes about pain in many forms, the collection never turns bleak or dark. Instead, with deep humanity and a soft hand, Brown weaves hope and light into her narrative, never turning away from the reality of suffering but also never relinquishing her belief in the beauty life can offer.