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. In some form—chronic or temporary, corporal or emotional—pain is a state we 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.