Violation

           

        
Praise for Sallie Tisdale

A Buddhist woman who's written about porn. Do you really need another reason to read her?

            
JULIA LIPSCOMB,
Inlander

          
Violation: Collected Essays

Sallie Tisdale's
Violation
is a writer's bible and a reader's best friend. Bold and wise, galvanizing and grounding, Tisdale's essays are propulsive and frightening in their poignance and content. This is the essay collection you'll want to have with you on that hypothetical desert island.

            
CHLOE CALDWELL, author of
Legs Get Led Astray
and
Women

Sallie Tisdale possesses one of the most companionable and inquisitive voices in contemporary American nonfiction. She is guided by a restless, humane intelligence. And her range! Who else can write about Moray eels and obscene phone calls, about the harrowing work of firefighters and the dreamy effects of laughing gas, all the while unearthing the deeper meanings of the world around us? Mortality, desire, love, loss: these are Tisdale's underlying subjects, and in
Violation
, she brings them to life with bracing clarity and unfailing insight.

            
BERNARD COOPER, author of
The Bill From My Father

Sallie Tisdale is the real thing, a writer who thinks like a philosopher, observes like a journalist, and sings on the page like a poet; in other words, the consummate and perfect essayist. She knocked my socks off when I first discovered her decades ago, and now, reading this collection, I realize I haven't found them since.
Violation
contains important work from an important writer. I'm so glad it's out in the world.

            
MEGHAN DAUM, author of
The Unspeakable: and Other Subjects of Discussion

That Sallie Tisdale's a treasure comes as no secret to lovers of the essay, and yet this happy gathering that spans the decades is revelatory, a fascinating look at the epic wanderings of a life mapped by curiosity. Here we get elephants and houseflies, diets and fires, birth and the debris of death, all the mixed and messy vitality of family life. We travel far and we travel wide, but in the end we circle home to Tisdale herself, vulnerable and available, intimate and encouraging, our guide and our friend, her questioning presence lighting the way and celebrating it all, every little step in life's saga, one lovely sentence at a time.

            
CHARLES D'AMBROSIO, author of
Loitering: New and Collected Essays

In essay, memoir, and literary journalism, Sallie Tisdale writes with fierce and finely tuned attention to what she calls “ordinary things, the journey of grime and wonder through the world.” Abortion, elephants, female identity, family history, eating and dieting, her Buddhist view of living and dying, her work as an oncology nurse, the ethics of writing nonfiction – whatever her focus, she is never content with an easy resolution or anything less than the most nuanced, most honest, most finely crafted account she is capable of. Readers may not always agree with her, but they will know they've been in the company of an articulate intelligence thinking out loud in graceful and incisive prose.

            
JOHN DANIEL, author of
Rogue River Journal
and
Looking After

I read Sallie Tisdale and within a few sentences, I am under her spell. It matters not whether she's writing about the tyranny of weight loss, the startling lives of blow flies, or what it's like to work in an oncology ward (she is a dedicated nurse as well as a brilliant writer): I'm all in, all the time. I will go anywhere she wants to take me. An alternate image – climbing into a submarine with Tisdale at the controls and diving down down down, into her singular sensibility, her genius for language, her love of our deeply imperfect world.

            
KAREN KARBO, author of
Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life

I've long admired Sallie Tisdale's essays, and this collection brandishes her impressive strengths: she's complicit without being woebegone, she's philosophical without being windy or airy, and she's empathetic without being hand-wringing.

            
DAVID SHIELDS, author of
Life Is Short – Art Is Shorter: In Praise of Brevity

          
Women of the Way: Discovering 2500 Years of Buddhist Wisdom

[A] beautifully crafted volume. The universal wisdom and enlightened thinking preserved in this collection transcends gender.

            
BOOKLIST

A well-written, deeply moving collection of stories … Fanciful and eminently readable.

            
BUDDHADHARMA

With her frank and thoughtful writing style, Tisdale takes the reader on a philosophical adventure.

            
EAST WEST WOMAN

An enlivening and indispensable volume.

            
JANE HIRSHFIELD, author of
Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women

A much-needed account of feminine teachers and leaders in Buddhism.

            
KANSAS CITY STAR

Tisdale's descriptive writing is especially imaginative.

            
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

          
The Best Thing I Ever Tasted: The Secret of Food

Tisdale's forte lies in helping readers to see the big picture, in which she ties together history, folklore, personal anecdote, and sharp analysis to show that we truly are what we eat.

            
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

[V]ery interesting and entertaining … Tisdale's coverage of food writers is very good.

            
LIBRARY JOURNAL

Tisdale is the Zen Buddhist Antichrist to her mother of the perpetual TV dinner.

            
KIRKUS REVIEWS

Sallie Tisdale takes subjects that might seem mundane or overdone and renders them unforgettable.

            
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

She's an easy, chatty writer who never says anything the way you're expecting, which makes reading her a pleasure.

            
BOSTON GLOBE

This book reminds us to be mindful of every mouthful.

            
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

          
Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex

Tisdale's provocative look at sexuality relates personal experiences alongside meditations on subjects such as pornography and prostitution.

            
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

A beautiful book.

            
LIBRARY JOURNAL

Great intelligence, humor and curiosity … whether or not you're taken aback by [Tisdale's] desires, you'll definitely exit her book with something to talk about.

            
GLAMOUR

These essays on sexuality, gender, and censorship offer the relief of a voice that is unmuffled by inhibitions.

            
MIRABELLA

Tisdale renders, with delectable eloquence, the sheer enormity of the sexual impulse.… These are conversations we need to be having, with as much of Tisdale's bracing honesty as we can muster.

            
SEATTLE WEEKLY

No doubt will raise both hackles and consciousness.

            
NEWSWEEK

Tisdale [has] managed to put her finger squarely on the hot button of public opinion.

            
THE BOSTON GLOBE

          
Stepping Westward: The Long Search for Home in the Pacific Northwest

An odd and lovely work.

            
KIRKUS REVIEWS

Tisdale has produced a loving, literate work …

            
LIBRARY JOURNAL

[V]ividly written …

            
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Ambitious, affectionate, sorrowful rhapsody … Tisdale's voice is fluid and richly varied.

            
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

[Tisdale's] prose is music for the mind's ear.

            
SEATTLE TIMES

Conjures the Northwest in a rare and magical way … This book will make you hit the road.

            
CRAIG LESLEY, author of
Burning Fence: A Western Memoir of Fatherhood

Tisdale's portrait of her home territory is personal and ingenuous.

            
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

          
Lot's Wife: Salt and the Human Condition

A rare book about a common subject.

            
RICHARD SELZER, author of
The Exact Location of the Soul

          
Harvest Moon: Portrait of a Nursing Home

A rare combination of candor, compassion, and deft art. I recommend this book to anyone seriously intending to grow old.

            
JOSH GREENFIELD, author of
Homeward Bound: A Novella of Idle Speculation

Copyright © 2016 Sallie Tisdale

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tisdale, Sallie. [Essays. Selections]

Violation: collected essays / by Sallie Tisdale.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-9904370-9-3

I. Title.

PS3570.I717A6 2016

814'.54–DC23

2015029013

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Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts

2201 Northeast 23rd Avenue

3rd Floor

Portland, Oregon 97212

hawthornebooks.com

Form
:

Adam McIsaac/Sibley House

Set in Paperback

ALSO BY SALLIE TISDALE

Women of the Way

The Best Thing I Ever Tasted

Talk Dirty to Me

Stepping Westward

Lot's Wife

Harvest Moon

The Sorcerer's Apprentice