The Body Is a Temporary Gathering Place - Paperback

by Andrew Bertaina (Author)

Andrew Bertaina is going through a mid-life crisis: failed marriage, child-rearing, self-doubt, ennui, the works. Naturally, Bertaina does what any of us would do; he draws inspiration from the poster boy of mid-life crisis chroniclers, the 16th-century essayist Michele de Montaigne, channeling misgivings into meditations, lostness into longing. The essays in The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place deal with a variety of timeless and universal topics: e.g., how to woo a French woman on a train, male caregiving, how to cannibalize your spouse, and the riddle of time. The essays promise no answers. They do, however, strive to capture the beauty that lingers in a life passing all too quickly.

Author Biography

Andrew Bertaina is the author of the short story collection One Person Away From You (2021), which won the Moon City Short Fiction Award. He has an MFA from American University in Washington, D.C., where he currently lives with his wife and four children.