Bodies in Motion and at Rest: On Metaphor and Mortality

In this collection of essays, Thomas Lynch, hailed by The New York Times as “a cross between Garrison Keillor and William Butler Yeats,”reminds us not only of how we die but also of how we live.

Bodies in Motion and at Rest proves Thomas Lynch to be an essential author in a time when contemporary life encumbers us with constant reminders of change and choice, of millennial endings and beginnings. As it steers us through that existential midway between “Something and Nothingness,” this indispensable book offers an artful and hopeful reflection on time and its treasures, on love and its power, and on birth, death, and, most importantly, what comes in between.  Lynch gives us glimpses of ordinary people and the ways they approach their own mortality. In stories about his close friends, and in discussions of sex and death, love and divorce, language and religion, commercial and spiritual consumerism, Lynch guides his readers effortlessly from the womb to the tomb with an inviting brand of wit and good humor, and with more than a few characteristic nods to the great poetry and literature of the ages.