Book Launch with Katherine Indermaur

Join us at the Publick House for a special book launch of I/I with Katherine Indermaur. 

“If I could only see more clearly my own seeing—” opens Katherine Indermaur’s full-length debut, I|I, and thus its interrogation of the eye begins. The book is a serial lyric essay that explores the mirror’s many dimensions—philosophical, spiritual, scientific, mythological, historical—alongside the author’s own experiences with the mental disorder dermatillomania, a compulsive picking of the skin. I|I is formally expansive, experimenting with the page and punctuation, and progresses through fragments. Readers will move from etymology to the invention of glass to glimpses of the author’s struggles and revelations. “Practices” are also offered throughout the book as a way for the reader to take the text from the page to their own bodies. Fans of Heather Christle’s The Crying Book, Paisley Rekdal’s “Nightingale: A Gloss,” or Maggie Nelson’s Bluets will find much to relish here. Anyone who has struggled with the disconnect between their outward appearance and their inner self knows how fraught and fragmentary it can be to behold one’s own reflection. I|I, however, does more than merely problematize the contested space where the face and the mirror meet. There is also an affirmation to be found here. This is a book that thinks so keenly it breaks into song.