How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division Review

As soon as I saw that Elif Shafak had a book of essays out, I bought it. Not only is she a prolific and talented novelist, but she is also a prolific and talented essayist. I became aware of her when I found her memoir Black Milk in a bookstore in rural northern California and have been a huge admirer ever since.

It’s the third day of the ballot count in the USA, and I have been doggedly watching it since it started. It’s an incredibly stressful time and I decided to take a break and read Shafak’s new book. Since the theme is division, it dovetails well with the current election climate and the extremely narrow margins of the counts. Shafak expresses righteous anger at the world’s current injustices, but does not get lost in despair. Her essays on anxiety and on anger are soothing and inspiring and instantly made me feel better.

Perhaps the most powerful of her essays in this book is “Disillusionment and Bewilderment.” It weaves together her family history, her appreciation for Turkish culture, and hopeful antidotes to feeling despair and voicelessness. But what really got me was her passages on what it means to leave your home, be “from” multiple places, and homesickness.

Motherlands are castles made of glass. In order to leave them, you have to break something — a wall, a social convention, a cultural norm, a psychological barrier, a heart. What you have broken will haunt you. To be an émigré, therefore, means to forever bear shards of glass in your pockets. It is easy to forget they are there, light and minuscule as they are, and go on with your life, your little ambitions and important plans, but at the slightest contact the shards will remind you of their presence. They will cut you deep.

This book made me cry.
It’s clear why Elif Shafak is my favorite author.