Swallow

Mary Cappello is the author of Awkward (a Los Angeles Times bestseller), Called Back, and Night Bloom. A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, the Bechtel Prize for Educating the Imagination, and the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize, she teaches at the University of Rhode Island and lives in Providence.

“A warm and thoroughly researched portrait.”—The Washington Post“Cappello … brings a psychoanalytic richness to her understanding of ingestion and dentition.”—The Guardian“[Cappello] packs her story with surprising imagery and extravagant lyricism, taking a highly literary approach on the subject.”—Salon“One odd, and oddly haunting, book.”—Macleans"Swallow is a surprising and original work. It is biography on the slant, a meditation that transcends boundaries and genres, written with scholarship, humor, and panache. I urge you to take this journey."—Ricky Jay"[Cappello's] writing style is wistful, wacky, and wise. . . . Swallow is a strange and alluring work of musings and medical history. . . . Occupying a curious position between Ripley’s Believe It or Not and riveting biography, this book is something special."—Tony Miksanek, MD, JAMA"A wonderful and bizarre book: gorge yourself on it, and gulp."—Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic"Cappello's fine writing creates a book that goes down very easy."—Paul Di Filippo, The Barnes & Noble Review

• Author’s NoteI. Who Was That Man?“Alone on Floor with Pile of Buttons”Remembering Forward: The Idea of a LegacyFbdy #C804, Case #3268, X-rays #48451C and 48460C: The Case of Andrew C.A Peculiar Chap“The Life of Chevalier Jackson”: Early Prototypes of RescueII. How Does Someone Swallow That?Between Carelessness and Desire: Getting Objects DownChevalier Jackson’s Traumatic “Phases”A Catastrophe of Childhood: Gastric LavageChevalier Jackson’s Tears: The Case of the Boy Who CriedFbdy (Multiple) #1173: Gavage: The Case of Joseph B.Fbdy #2440: A Perfect Attendance Pin“Strange Things Were on the Run from Mary’s Deepest Depths”: Hardware, Swords, ScopesIII. What Are These Things?Fbdy #565: The Case of Margaret Derryberry: Objects Lost and Found and Lost AgainInstrumentality and Instruments as ThingsModernist Portals and Secular Tabernacles: Chevalier Jackson Meets Joseph CornellIV. Mystery Bones and the Unrecovered BoySelect BibliographyAcknowledgmentsIndex