{"product_id":"breaking-the-curse-a-memoir-about-trauma-healing-and-italian-witchcraft-paperback","title":"Breaking the Curse: A Memoir about Trauma, Healing, and Italian Witchcraft - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eAlex Difrancesco\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA tour de force of narrative nonfiction, a reimagining of the self-help genre, and a brave memoir about mystical forces, trauma, trans life, and how we must heal ourselves to survive. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor readers of memoirs by Elliot Page (\u003ci\u003ePageboy\u003c\/i\u003e) and Elissa Washuta (\u003ci\u003eWhite Magic\u003c\/i\u003e), and fans of writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Samantha Hunt, and Chavisa Woods. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eBreaking the Curse\u003c\/i\u003e, Alex DiFrancesco takes their own crushing experiences of assault, addiction, and transphobic violence as the starting point for a journey to self-reclamation. Reeling in the aftermath of a rape that played out as painfully in public as in private, DiFrancesco begins to pursue spirituality in earnest, searching for an ancestral connection to magic as a form of protection and pathway to transformation. Propelled by a knowledge of the spiritual role of the transgender person in society, Alex winds through Cleveland and Brooklyn and Philly--from rehab and pagan AA meetings and friends' spare mattresses to tarot readers and books about Italian witchcraft to daily ritual, prayer, altar-making, and folk tradition. In so doing, they begin to not only piece together a way to heal but also call into existence a life that finally feels worth living. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBreaking the Curse\u003c\/i\u003e weaves spells, blasphemous novenas, and personal memories to imagine a new memoir form. Speaking about trauma does not always take its power away, DiFrancesco reminds us, but one can write their truth so that the hurt no longer fills the whole horizon. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"'I see this world as few others do, ' writes Alex DiFrancesco, and thank goodness for that. In their memoir, \u003ci\u003eBreaking the Curse\u003c\/i\u003e, DiFrancesco offers readers a mesmerizing vision of this world and the workings of trauma, gender identity and magic within it. A spell-binding work.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Molly Roden Winter author of \u003ci\u003eMore: A Memoir of Open Marriage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eALEX DIFRANCESCO\u003c\/b\u003e is a multi-genre writer and transmasc person who is the author of \u003ci\u003eTransmutation, All City, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003ePsychopomps. \u003c\/i\u003eTheir work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eNew York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Tin House, Pacific Standard, Eater, Brevity, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, \u003c\/i\u003e and more\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e They are the recipient of grants and fellowships from PEN America, Sundress Academy for the Arts, and the winner of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2022. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAlex DiFrancesco's \u003ci\u003eTransmutation: Stories (2021)\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of short fiction about trans people in a mostly non-trans world, was lauded as \"eclectic, absorbing\" in the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e. Their novel \u003ci\u003eAll City (2019)\u003c\/i\u003e, a masterful envisioning of a near-future, underwater New York, was praised by \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e as a \"loving, grieving warning [that] thoughtfully traces the resilience, fragility, and joy of precarious communities in an immediate, compassionate voice.\" It was also a first awards finalist by a transgender author in over 80 years of the Ohioana Book Awards. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThey formerly served as an assistant editor for Sundress Publications in Tennessee, and currently edit LGBTQIA+ non-fiction for Jessica Kingsley Publishers. DiFrancesco lives in Philadelphia and is the human companion of a middle-aged, ill-mannered Westie named Roxy Music, Dog of Doom.\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 224\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.2 x 6.1 x 5.3 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 18, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46581374419143,"sku":"9781644213841","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0778\/9802\/3111\/files\/2c7c460920b6a5972689b411790d2bc4.webp?v=1779301464","url":"https:\/\/ultimatefinds.com\/products\/breaking-the-curse-a-memoir-about-trauma-healing-and-italian-witchcraft-paperback","provider":"Ultimate Finds","version":"1.0","type":"link"}