Leslie Jamison writes through pain, illness, addiction, injury, performance, violence, and the social rituals by which suffering becomes legible to other people.

The title essay begins with Jamison’s work as a medical actor, paid to perform symptoms for trainee doctors, and expands into a broader investigation of what it means to recognise another person’s pain without turning it into spectacle, sentiment, or self-congratulation.

These essays are sharp, bodily, restless, and often uncomfortable in the useful way. Jamison moves between memoir, criticism, reportage, and cultural diagnosis, asking not simply whether empathy is good, but what empathy actually does: who performs it, who receives it, who is required to prove pain before they are believed, and how easily care can become another form of extraction. A strong one for readers of Maggie Nelson, Eula Biss, Olivia Laing, Sontag-adjacent illness writing, and contemporary essays that still have a pulse.

Paperback. Granta edition of Leslie Jamison’s acclaimed essay collection. Good used condition with light general shelf wear; internally clean and sound.