URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Spring_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

An Eclectic Way with Words by Paul Kandarian

Of the four books Cappello has written to date, the University of Rhode Island (URI) professor of English and creative writing says, “I like to say each is a thought experiment.” Cappello explains, “I would never downplay the power of story, but narrative is not at the center of what I do. It’s there, but I’m actually interested in putting non- narrative next to narrative, bringing things together presumed to be opposed. Can a new form emerge? Can a new way of looking at things emerge?” Consider the books that Cappello has written. Her memoir, Night Bloom , is a multi-genre work that combines oral history, folklore, the bilingual journals of her Italian immigrant grandfather–who was a shoemaker by trade – dream work, letters and cultural theory. Her second book, Awkward: A Detour , a Los Angeles Times bestseller, is a book- length essay that cuts across diverse subjects such as ontological discomfort,

stuttering, situational silence and the work and life of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a German film director, screenwriter, actor. Called Back was her third book, looking at her experience with breast cancer, earning accolades that included an Independent Publishers Award in 2009. Her fourth book was Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them, about the work of pioneering laryngologist Chevalier Jackson, and his collection of nearly 2,000 foreign bodies he extracted non-surgically from the throats of people in the early 20th century, which are on display at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. Cappello is working on another book, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press, about what she calls the ineffable subject of mood and its affinities with clouds, sonic atmospheres, sonorous envelopes and dioramas. She’s also working on a series of linked essays,

To say that Mary Cappello’s way with words is eclectic does not do justice to her writing.

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Spring | 2015 Page 39