From 2019 to 2023, through one of the most chaotic eras in modern history, Isaac Marion (author of the New York Times bestselling WARM BODIES series) invited his readers to send him their hopes and fears.
Illness. Loss. Uncertainty. The nervous dance of new love. The ecstasy of good work. The dangerous allure of solitude. Depression, self-doubt, the flow of time, the sleeping and breathing of everything—how do we do it?
Here are 26 hopes and fears and 26 responses, each one illustrated by the author. They are conversational little poems, written by an outsider in approachable verse—folk songs, not symphonies—drawing inspiration from animals, babies, weather patterns, outer space, and psychedelic experience, not to provide "answers," but to ask the questions together, fumbling in the dark, yearning in the direction of daylight.