The Map of My Vanishing
by Richard James
Some books feel like an open wound.
Here, set down in exquisite poetry, is a young man’s story told with such intimacy that its reading feels like an act of trespassing.
Our protagonist’s journey begins brightly — a young boy standing at the edge of the world, eager and expectant, studying its beauty, revelling in the potential within himself.
But drenched in feeling, he finds our world a violent home.
What follows is both brutal and beautiful: a spectacle of suffering, poetry as both wound and salve.
In clear reverence for the writers who raised him — Plath, Sexton, Nabokov, Woolf, Pessoa — James transforms his most private journals into a study of the modern mind at its most honest, like a diary that was never meant to be shared.
“Congratulations to Richard James. This new volume of poetry is superb. Richard writes so eloquently and candidly, with both great wit and pathos. Heartily recommended.” Matt Lucas — writer, actor and television host
★★★★★“An unforgettable debut: elegant, brutal, and alive with feeling.”
★★★★★“A fearless reckoning with pain and beauty, written with breath-taking honesty and craft.”
★★★★★“A voice at once vulnerable and unyielding, searching for tenderness in the wreckage.”
