What is it like to live with a wildly creative poet if you are a writer yourself?
1983. A lecture at the Jung Institute Zurich. "Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath-they were examples of the anima female. Marilyn Monroe too," the famed Jungian analyst/author Marion Woodman was saying. Listening to her, I knew: A Lecture upon the Shadow is about the anima female! She read the manuscript, very moved, confirming it was written unconsciously. I might have to wait ten years for everybody to understand it, she predicted. That's more than FORTY years ago! Will people understand it now? Be helped? Are there any other "anima females" out there, acting as muses?
A Lecture upon the Shadow is a zany look at a dysfunctional, intoxicated writer couple who use creativity in their relationship at an explosive level. Marion Woodman calls this "the anima female," that is, a situation where the female links into the creative unconscious of the male, making their tie absorbing. Unavoidable. A fueling station. Told a lot through conversation, it is based in a true story that illuminates the familiar predicament of "can't live with you/can't live without you." However, Merry Loup and Knut Karel spin a fascinating narrative. Join them in their travels and bohemian lifestyle, mostly in Morocco.
Review :
"A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW rips the fairytale of marriage apart and burns it entire on a Moroccan blue bone fire. A journey through hell. Beyond Goethe, beyond the French existentialists, through and beyond Jungian depth psychology, beyond the novel, beyond autobiography, beyond creative non-fiction, A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW is a completely new eloquently painful way of telling a self-actualization story. Margaret Ann Harrell has rendered an excruciating masterpiece. It's brilliant. And there's no other book like this one, anywhere, ever."
-Ron Whitehead, US Lifetime National Beat Poet Laureate
"This book knocked the Bukowski I was reading straight out of my hands. It pulled me. Dragged me. Brought me in. I followed without hesitation. I laughed loud, then caught that cold little echo in the spine because I know that voice. We all know that voice.
"Younger readers are going to feel this one like a mirror of recognition. The book never retreats. It kicks forward, barefoot, through broken glass, still cracking jokes. It is funny in the only way that counts. Not decoration. Not relief. The laugh hits first; then the truth lands just behind it, sharp enough to leave a mark. Some pages tickle. Some bite. You finish the book feeling seen, steadied, and slightly more dangerous than when you began."
-Daniel O' Bailey, Gen-Z musician
