RUN TOWARDS THE DANGER Confrontations with a Body of Memory

Sarah Polley's essays hit so hard that this listener didn't--at first--notice that she extracts volumes of feeling from every word. A voice this agile would make music of the tax code. Instead, she tells personal stories that would enthrall even without the successes about which this Canadian star of stage and screen never pauses to boast. When she was a child actor being raised by childish adults, her costumes had to be custom-made to disguise the disfigurement of extreme scoliosis. Not bad enough? A fire extinguisher fell on her head. Severely disabled, she found a doctor who told her not to coddle her traumatized brain but to challenge it. This she did and returned to health. "Run towards the danger," she tells us and toes the starting line again. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2022]