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Learn moreWriter Elissa Bassist shares her journey to reclaim her authentic voice in a culture that doesn't listen to women in this medical mystery, cultural criticism, and rallying cry.
Between 2016 and 2018, Elissa Bassist saw over twenty medical professionals for a variety of mysterious ailments. Bassist had what millions of American women had: pain that didnāt make sense to doctors, a body that didnāt make sense to science, a psyche that didnāt make sense to mankind. But then an acupuncturist suggested some of her physical pain could be caged fury finding expression, and that treating her voice would treat the problem. It did.
Growing up, Bassist's family, boyfriends, school, work, and television had the same expectation for a womanās voice: less is more. She was called dramatic and insane for speaking her mind; she was accused of overreacting and playing victimĀ for having unexplained physical pain;Ā she was ignored or rebuked like women throughout history for using her voice āinappropriatelyā by expressing sadness or suffering or anger or joy. Ā
Because of this, she said āyesā when she meant ānoā; she didnāt tweet #MeToo; and she never spoke without fear of being "too emotional." So, she felt rage, but like a good woman, repressed it. In Hysterical, Bassist explains how girls and women internalize and perpetuate directives about their voice, making it hard to emote or ājust speak upā and āburn down the patriarchy.ā But her silence hurt more than anything she could ever say. Hysterical is a memoir of a voice lost and found, and a primer on new ways to think about a womanāsĀ voice, where itās being squashed and where it needs amplification. Bassist breaks her own silences and calls on others to do the sameāto unmute their voice, listen to it above all others, and use it again without regret.
Elissa BassistĀ is an essayist, humor writer, and editor of the āFunny Womenā column on The Rumpus. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, sheās written cultural, feminist, and personal criticism since the website launched in 2009. Her writing has appeared inĀ The New York Times, Marie Claire, Creative Nonfiction,Ā NewYorker.com, Longreads, and more, including the anthologyĀ Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, edited by Roxane Gay. Currently, she teaches writing at The New School, Catapult, 92nd Street Y, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She lives in Brooklyn and is probably her therapistās favorite.
Elissa BassistĀ is an essayist, humor writer, and editor of the āFunny Womenā column on The Rumpus. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, sheās written cultural, feminist, and personal criticism since the website launched in 2009. Her writing has appeared inĀ The New York Times, Marie Claire, Creative Nonfiction,Ā NewYorker.com, Longreads, and more, including the anthologyĀ Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, edited by Roxane Gay. Currently, she teaches writing at The New School, Catapult, 92nd Street Y, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She lives in Brooklyn and is probably her therapistās favorite.
Reviews
“Hysterical is staggeringly good. I am speechless, which as a reader, is a rare thing for me. I really just have a bunch of blubbering accolades to shower on Elissa. This is one of the most intelligent, painful, ridiculous, awesome, relevant things I've ever read. I am impressed.”āRoxane Gay "One of the qualities I appreciated most about Hysterical is the way the author subtly and gracefully links her deeply personal life story to compelling questions about women’s sexuality, literature, history. We never notice her doing the connecting; the larger themes and analysis are seamlessly woven into the intimate story. She makes us think and care about not simply what happened to her, but about women’s bodies, our continued detachment from our own desire, our own complicity in the culture of sexual violence…This artful, moving work of creative nonfiction transcends the self, while keeping us rooted in the most intimate of stories.”
āDanzy Senna, bestselling author of Caucasia and judge of the New School Chapbook Competition “I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Elissa's writing. That was five loves....Quite a special, strong, funny voice."āJoey Soloway, creator/writer/director/Emmy-award winner of Transparent "In her dazzling memoir, Elissa Bassist cuts right to the heart and delivers an intimate, unexpected, funny, and original yet universal story about voice and silence and illness. Hysterical is an impressive debut. Elissa Bassist wrote it like a motherfucker."āCheryl Strayed “Funny and furious and sharp and bursting with everything we’re urged to hold inside, Elissa Bassist’s Hysterical is a god damn delight.”āRebecca Traister "Disruptive, tender, and beautiful, this book is a reversal of women’s apologies and a demand for more."āLibrary Journal Starred Review Expand reviews