Dear Sound of Footstep

“Explores the poetry in dynamic facts, and accumulates stories where life and life’s enterprises meet . . . A lovely debut” (Thalia Field, author of Experimental Animals).   In her daring essay collection, author Ashley Butler engages the reader in an exploration of her mother’s death and an estranged paternal relationship. The candid narrative evolves into a stunning, abstract deconstruction of time and space, piloting the reader precariously close to the unanswered question, “Why are we here?”   Among the subjects she touches on: the fastest man on earth, wind farms and tunnels, and the anechoic (without echo) chamber at Harvard University. We hear about some of history’s oddest seekers of spiritual and scientific knowledge: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of cosmonautics; Yves Klein, the “artist of space;” Russian futurist Nikolai Federov; and Harry Houdini, hanging headfirst over a crowd in Times Square. Butler’s collection has a true magic of its own, at times both brutal and gorgeous, but always coming back to an empathy of spirit and intelligence far beyond Butler’s years.   “Writing about cancer is a difficult task, given its ubiquitous—and therefore well-known and well-documented—horror. But in Dear Sound of Footstep, a sequence of essays simultaneously about and not about the death of her mother from cancer, Ashley Butler manages to generate a surprisingly new perspective on this familiar story.” —Black Warrior Review   “Ashley Butler has made of her staggering and cruel bewilderment—her deep and voracious intelligence—an eloquent and moving testament to the powers of art and love.” —John D’Agata, author of The Lifespan of a Fact