The Comet's Tail

I do not remember the tubes, the tests, or the icy cold of space. I do not remember losing six months of my life.

At age nineteen, Amy Nawrocki returned from her first year of college, scribbled a few notes in her journal, and took a terrifying summer trip. She remembers one night of disorientation, then nothing until Christmas, when awareness slowly restarts. The Comet’s Tail is the story of these missing months: the seizures and fever spikes, the deep nothing of coma, and the unexpected, dramatic recovery. Memory is recreated around EEG transcripts and doctors’ notes, family vigils and blurry Polaroids. From her unique perspective, Nawrocki investigates the connections between memory, trauma, and identity. She illuminates what it means to truly return to consciousness in this extraordinary memoir of illness, healing, and writing over the blank pages of our lives. 

Amy Nawrocki of New Haven, CT

Amy Nawrocki is a Connecticut native, raised in Newtown and now living in Hamden. She earned a Bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Arkansas. She has received numerous honors for her poetry, including awards from the Litchfield Review Poetry Contest, the Codhill Chapbook Competition, The Loft Anthology, Phi Kappa Phi, New Millennium Writings, and the Connecticut Poetry Society. She is the author of five poetry collections: Potato Eaters, Nomad’s End, Lune de Miel, Four Blue Eggs and Reconnaissance. With her husband, Eric D. Lehman, she wrote A History of Connecticut Wine, A History of Connecticut Food and Literary Connecticut.  She teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Bridgeport and is mother to two cats, Maple and Django.