Out of Nowhere Into Nothing

by Caryl Pagel

Essays on the apparitional, the incomprehensible, and the paranormal in conversation with art, travel, and storytelling
 
The ghosts—literal and figurative—that drive our deepest impulses, disturb our most precious memories, and haunt the passages of our daily lives are present in this collection of sublime meditations on the unbelievable, the coincidental, and the apparitional. Often containing reflections on the art of storytelling, Caryl Pagel’s essays blend memoir, research, and reflection, and are driven by a desire to observe connections between the visual and the invisible. The narrator of Pagel’s essays explores each enigma or encounter (a football coach’s faked death, the faces of women walking, historical accounts of hallucinations, a city’s public celebration gone wrong) as an intellectual detective ascending a labyrinthine tower of clues in pursuit of a solution to an unreachable problem: always curious, and with a sense of profound wonder.
 
Out of Nowhere Into Nothing is a sprawling, highly associative consideration of the ways in which the observed material world recalls us to larger narrative and aesthetic truths. Interspersed with documentary-style photographs, Pagel’s first collection of prose is a radiant, obsessive investigation into the mysteries at the center of our seemingly mundane lives.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays

164 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2020

About the author

Caryl Pagel is an associate professor at Cleveland State University, where she teaches poetry and nonfiction in the NEOMFA program. She is author of two books of poetry, Twice Told and Experiments I Should Like Tried At My Own Death, and a collection of essays, Out of Nowhere Into Nothing. Pagel is a cofounder and editor at Rescue Press and the director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center.

Reviews

[Angela Woodward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pagel is a wonderful writer, no matter the subject matter. The quickness of her prose and its sudden transitions make anything she touches interesting. These essays cast a wide net, beginning with a few people drinking, roaming into an art museum, and then on to car crashes, cancer, ghosts, and sleep walking. Glimpses of the otherworldly unite the collection, while her writin is also anchored in the material world--the olives the waiter brings, eyeglasses, pajamas. Her essays reveal an intelligent mind in the very act of thinking, capturing gaps, glimmers, connections, and regrets.

[Taylor Yardley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accidental borrow that turned out to be surprisingly good. I was actually looking for A Pickle for the Knowing Ones as I heard it was a confusing, crazy, unique book. Pagel talks about it in a chapter of the same name, and so this book appeared in my library search. Decided to check it out and here I am.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Do we get to live more than once?”
“But we don’t always get to choose what we return to.”

Definitely felt like reading the novel of a ghost
10/10 no notes