Take Her, She's Yours

Front matter

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PART ONE 19 Phone Number : Fishing - In Thrall - La americana : Trying Not To

Understand - Ocean > Two Doctors : Take Her « Shortcut > Virgin Mary -

Where the Couch Was - Selkie - Ooze + Native Skin + Umbrella - Daddy

Issues « Self-Fashioning - Nobody © Women’s World - Fridays + “What Does a Woman Want?” « Entrapment - Splitting * Deserving

PART TWO 99 Catch Me : De Man : Holding - Monogamy : Porous > Its Own World > Too Much - Into the Destructive Element : Not Knowing « Cockroaches + The

One - Cuckoo : Leda and the Swan « Animation : Error - L’inutile beauté -

Dora and the Door : Run, Run, Run If You Can

PART THREE 151 Rats - At the Beginning : Blanking Out + The Dwarves > Drift + How the

Mighty Are Fallen + My Other Half - Ever After + Bloodlines + Leave - Anti-Revelation - Hot Water Bottle - July Weekend - You Fucked Up My Life + Heartbeat : The Third Term - One More Twist in the Spiral + Hue - Five

Years In > Personal Writing - Georgian Bay > End of Analysis

Endnotes 205

Bibliography 209

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to my institutional homes, the Centre for Comparative Literature and the Spanish and Portuguese Department at University of Toronto, for providing me the space, the freedom, and the encouragement to write what I’ve needed to write. In this generous setting, I have been able to teach my seminar, “Forms of Critical Writing,” multiple times. To all of you brave students, thank you for making a space with me in which we could risk exposure and failure in order to experiment with our ideas and words. The Jackman Humanities Institute generously supported an earlier iteration of this project. I am so grateful to Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei and Eileen A. Fradenburg Joy of punctum books for their vision, their knowledge, and their support in bringing this book into the world. A special thanks to Vincent, for your assiduous editorial work during the difficult first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic.

Irina Sadovina said, after reading this book, “it is not always easy to be confronted by the disturbing and implicating ways that another person unconsciously organizes herself” To the incredible people who have been willing to be confronted, and to give me feedback, thank you, you have made this a better book: Irina, Lauren Kirshner, Amira Mittermaier, Alex Marzano- Lesnevitch, Said Sayrafiezadeh, Chloe Higgins, Manjula Stokes, Shanna MacNair and Scott Wolven of The Writer’s Hotel, Valentina Napolitano, Katie Lew, and Catherine Fatima. And thank you to all the perceptive friends and family who've asked the serious questions that I need to be able to answer, in life and in writing: Lisa Moore, Lauren Berlant, Claudia Rankine, Amy DeAth, Maria Jagoe, Georgy Kronfeld, Maddie Kronfeld, Dima Kronfeld, Eric Cazdyn, Victoria McKenzie, Camilla Gibb, Al

Moritz, Gretchen Bakke, and Viviane Weitzner. Eve Sedgwick’s teaching, talking, and writing resonate through these pages in ways that I didn’t recognize for years. I wish we could talk together about this book.

Elspeth Brown and Catherine Taylor and Dalia Kandiyoti, your friendship and honest words have been touchstones for me, again and again. You sustain and nourish my thoughts and my days.

Alicia Naranjo, gracias por esa noche en la cocina, y tantas otras charlas a través de los afios. Jay and Eva Jagoe, I am so happy that weve had all these years to know each other in the intimate ways that transcend the parent-daughter relationship portrayed here. Your stories touch me and fill me with wonder at all the different selves you have been in your lives. Lolita, te llevo dentro de mi, con agradecimiento y amor.

One day last year I went to a talk at University of Toronto. Sitting across the room from me was a man who looked familiar. I thought, with a jolt, that it was David's shrink, a man Id only met once. How strange to be sitting across from a man who knew so much about my ex’s psyche! I tried not to stare. About five minutes into the talk, I was flooded with the flustered, amused, and confused realization that it wasn't David’s shrink, it was mine. Dr. O, even though you were so present to me as I wrote this book, I didn’t recognize you. I hope, however, that you'll recognize us in these pages.

David Thomson, when I first told you Td written a book in which the narrator is married to someone named David, I asked you if I should change the name. You said, “Nah, take it, I should get around to changing it anyway.’ I’m glad that you didn't, and honoured that you have given this book your blessing. You live in these pages in a version that is not yours, but that is, as you say, a “good-enough” one.

Imre Szeman, you were by my side all those days when I would get stuck, or filled with doubt, or couldn't stop crying. I know some of this book causes you pain, which makes me even more grateful for your support, your love, and your constant encouragement. Thank you for the gorgeous space of our days, for the joyful adventures, and for the plenitude of our lives together.

Sebastian and Liam, I don’t need you to ever read this book, but I hope that if you do, its story will come at a time that will help you hold your own many selves. My love for you made telling this story so necessary, and so hard. I dedicate this book to you.