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“Unstitched is riveting, compassionate, topical, and one of the best books I’ve read this year. Stanciu, in beautiful prose, takes on the impact of the opioid epidemic on a small Vermont town with the gusto and suspense of a fine mystery novel, and the empathy that only a truly fine observer of the human condition could muster. Highly recommended.”
— Thomas Christopher Greene, author of The Headmaster’s Wife and The Perfect Liar, Founding President of Vermont College of Fine Arts -
“Unstitched should be mandatory reading. It is a heartbreaking, raw, tender and revelatory look at addiction and its pervasive grip on ourselves, our families, our communities, and our rural towns. It is also a sublimely written narrative of transformation, vulnerability, discovery and love. This book undid me as I read—taking me into the heart of suffering, revealing my own habits, biases and fears—and then it gathered those pieces together and braided them into something new: a vision of hope, connection, possibility and healing for us all. Stanciu’s courage, generosity, curiosity and gorgeous words are the very best of guides.”
— Robin MacArthur, author of Heart Spring Mountain and Half Wild 
Tag Archives: suffering
Sign of Spring, Hardwick, VT, #7
My friend down the road emails a complaint regarding the break in my signs of spring project — because there isn’t any! she writes. True, snow returned yesterday. Enormous, lacy flakes that would have been beautiful December — say — rather than … Continue reading
Still Here, Hardwick, Vermont
I’m reading Ruth Stone in bed when my daughter comes up the stairs in her jacket and says I must go with her to look at the moon. It’s nearly eleven. We leave the younger sister sleeping with the cats, … Continue reading
One Life Instruction, via Mary Oliver
Last summer, we were eating dinner with friends who have young children, and two couples compared notes about their toddlers drinking dirty bath water. I laughed and assured them, yes, someday their kids would brush their own teeth. The real … Continue reading
Summertime Chaos
Every June, I have the same vision that summer signifies a smoother sailing, a leveling out of our family life. Every July, I realize how mistaken is that cliche. By July, the garden is both flourishing and struggling. The house, … Continue reading
Slow Learner
At breakfast at the hotel, my ten-year-old is mesmerized by fruit loops. I’ve never tried those, she says, looking at the rainbow bits yearningly. Go for it, I tell her. Nearing the end of the milky bowl, she lays down her … Continue reading
Listening
Last evening, walking along our dirt road with my daughter, she chattered about our shadows in the lingering daylight, how the sun had merged us into one person, and we appeared to be one being with four legs and a … Continue reading
Travels Around the Globe & Through the Centuries
Late into last night and early this morning – two periods of darkness – I read Caroline Alexander’s The Bounty, the travels of Captain William Bligh and his misfortunes. She writes of the exquisite natural beauty of Tahiti, and about the chaos … Continue reading
Day of Hearts
In When Breath Becomes Air, recently posthumously published, Paul Kalanithi acknowledges the irony of his devastating cancer in his thirties; Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon unbelievably gifted in a multitude of ways, had striven to understand mortality before his diagnosis, to parse what … Continue reading
Ready
A year ago, I finally wrote the query email that sold my book. With no internet access at home, I wrote the email in a corner of a public hallway in Montpelier, my back up against the literal as well … Continue reading
