Skull Cathedral
A Vestigial Anatomy
Distributed for Autumn House Press
232 pages
|
5 1/4 x 8
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Grasping Reflex: Swallowing Needles Hymen: A Traveling Circus Appendix: A River Homing Wisdom Teeth: Man in the Moon Coccyx: The Mermaids of Austin Pinky Toes: Ghost Feet Spleen: Cloud Elephants Sinuses: Skull Cathedral Third Eyelid: Running through Water Male Nipples: Nurturing Instincts Palmaris Longus: The End of Longing Tonsils: Winter Honey Horripilation: Playing Dress-up Darwins Tubercle: Softer Hearing
Review Quotes
Paul Lisicky, author of "Later: My Life at the Edge of the World"
“Hungry, ascetic, erotic, and haunted, Skull Cathedral moves from essay to essay as if from one dream to the next, testing what it means to be attached to a body, to beauty, to love. There isn’t a sentence here that isn’t in awe of consciousness and the cold, clear ache of being alive. Wiley is a writer who takes no moment for granted, and maybe that's why perception here is so intensified, from a strand of hair in an infant’s hand to a stranger's lipstick left behind on a coffee cup. This is life on the brink, confronting the inescapable fact that all of us die and everything goes. It’s also a joy to read, rigorous and brilliant, so fresh.”
Jenny Boully, author of "The Body"
“Skull Cathedral is a lovely summoning to another world, one in which the body is lifted into pure essayistic fury, a stormy, haunted thought-scape that strives to reach and clutch and keep close the inevitable losses of a life. These memoiristic essays zoom in and out, showcasing what we have lost, what we have yet to lose. Wiley offers us the moon and its brilliance and its depressions, but more importantly, she telegraphs its distance, longing, and unknowing.”
PEN America/ Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
"Longlisted"
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Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature
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