This Is the Door: The Body, Pain, and Faith

by Darcey Steinke

Overview

Darcey Steinke, acclaimed author of Flash Count Diary and Suicide Blonde, explores the world of pain for those who suffer and those who love them.

One-fifth of Americans live in chronic pain. Pain is a state we all will all endure.

Darcey Steinke gets to the heart of pain with her usual brilliance, humor, and empathy. In chapters that trace the body—The Spine, The Heart, The Knees, and more—she takes sufferers into the understandings of pain through history, philosophy, religion, pop culture, and reporter human experience. Steinke takes readers under the knife, through the archives, and across oceans. She interviews working physicians, analyzes the writings of Frida Kahlo, recounts her own back surgery, and journeys to Lourdes, where she finds herself invited to help.

Taking on a subject relevant to us all—whether we are hurting or know someone who is—This Is the Door illuminates the experience of pain and its myriad effects on the body, mind, and soul. For readers of Joan Didion, C. S. Lewis, Sheila Heti, and Leslie Jamison, it is destined to become a classic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063289161
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/24/2026
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Darcey Steinke is the author of multiple nonfiction and novels, including her most recent memoir, Flash Count Diary. Her work has been translated into ten languages, and her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, among many others. She has been shortlisted for the Independent Book Prize and the French Arles Author award. She has taught at Columbia University School of the Arts, New York University, Princeton University, and the American University of Paris. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn, New York.