A Perfect Offering

We live in a traumatic age. Or, perhaps, we should say that trauma appears fundamental to human existence. Over the past few years, especially, we have become more at ease talking about the traumas that impact, affect, and transform us. There is a large and growing literature on trauma all of which demand from readers a measure of emotional and psychological strength. A Perfect Offering brings to readers a variety of deeply personal narratives about traumatic and transformational events. The stories and images collected here include accounts of childhood and adult cancer, surviving terrorist attack, living with the legacy of Residential schools,losing a parent in a plane crash, coping with severe PTSD, living as a blind person in a world built for the sighted, facing the immanent death of a child, finding your way as a trans woman, recording images of war and its victims, surviving sexual assault, and others. A Perfect Offering conveys strength and weakness, failure and recovery, personal experiences and even a measure of universal truths. The book may seem raw, or visceral, but it is deeply personal true. It is written so that all of us can witness, comfort, experience and possibly even live though trauma. The book was born out of trauma. Soon after Harold Heft discovered in January 2014, at the age of 49, that he had an inoperable, malignant brain tumour, he and Peter OBrien and Suzanne Heft started working on this book. Harold died on 23 July 2015, with his personal contribution to this book still in draft form. Several months later, Suzanne and Peter restarted the project in honour of him and others. Some of the contributions in A Perfect Offering may seem shocking and disorienting. Others may seem inspiring and comforting. All are illustrative and compelling. They resonate. There is hard-won wisdom woven through into these stories and images. They are gripping and engaging personal observations on suffering, and adversity, and resilience. Thirty Four contributions, essays, narratives and images. Among the contributors are Jennifer Finney Boylan, trans woman and regular op-ed contributor to The New York Times; Trevor Green, who in 2006, as a soldier, was attacked by an axe-wielding teenager in a tent near Kandahar, Afghanistan, a journalist and author of six books; Charles C. Smith, author of 12 books and founder of Black Perspectives Cultural Program at Regent Park, Toronto; Jules Arita Koostachin, band, member of the Attawapiskat First Nation and editing a volume entitled Children of the Survivors: Intergenerational Resilience and Canadian Residential Schools; Paul Watson, awarded the 1994 Puli]tzer Prize for Spot News Photography, and author of three books; Lotje Soderland suffered a life-threatening brain hemorrhage at the age of 34 which left her unable to read, retain memories or live unassisted; London-based, her film My Beautiful Broken Brain streams on Netflix; and others.