Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Love Is a Burning Thing: A Memoir

Love Is a Burning Thing: A Memoir

St Pierre, Nina

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralSelf-Help

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0593473825
ISBN13: 9780593473825
Publisher: Dutton
Published: May 7 2024
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.10
Height: 1.50 Width: 5.90 Depth: 9.20
Language: English
Winner of the 2025 Housatonic Book Award for Nonfiction

A riveting memoir about a daughter's investigation into the wirings of her loving, unpredictable mother: a woman who lived her life in pursuit of the divine, and who started two big fires, decades apart.

Ten years before Nina was born, her mother lit herself on fire in a dual suicide attempt. During her recovery in the burn-unit, a nurse initiated her into Transcendental Meditation. From that day on, her mother's pain became intertwined with the pursuit of enlightenment.

Growing up, Nina longed for a normal life; instead, she and her brother were at the whims of their mother, who chased ascension up and down the state of California, swapping out spiritual practices as often as apartments. When they finally settled at the foot of a mountain--reputed to be cosmic--in Northern California, Nina hoped life would stabilize. But after another fire, and a tragic fallout, she was forced to confront the shadow side of her mother's mystical narratives. With obsessive dedication, Nina began to knit together the truth that would eventually release her.

In Love Is a Burning Thing, Nina interrogates what happens to those undiagnosed and unseen. This is a transfixing, moving portrait of a mother-daughter relationship that also examines mental health, stigma, poverty, and gender--and the role that spirituality plays within each. Nina's writing skirts the mystical, untangles it, and ultimately illuminates it with brilliance.

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