Begin by Telling

Book excerpt: Never forget / to connect the dots / This book is an attempt to connect a couple. In?Begin by Telling, experimental pop sensation and Polaris nominee Meg Remy spins a web out from her body to myriad corners of American hyper-culture. Through illustrated lyric essays depicting memories from early childhood to present day, Remy paints a stark portrait of a spectacle-driven country. These memories are visceral. As though channel surfing, we catch glimpses of Desert Storm, the Oklahoma City Bombing, random street violence, the petrochemical industry, small town Deadheads, a toilet with uterus lining in it, the county STD clinic, and missionaries at the front door. Each is shared through language of the body; the sensation of experiencing many of the defining events and moments of a country. These threads nimbly interweave with probing quotes and statistics, demonstrating the importance of personal storytelling, radical empathy and the necessity of both systemic and self-study. Immersive and utterly compelling, ?Begin by Telling?is an artifact of our time; a fascinating perspective on American culture. - Meg Remy