In her innovative, daring essay collection, Dear Sound of Footstep, author Ashley Butler engages the reader in an exploration of her mother's death and estranged paternal relationship. As illusions of a celestial umbrella slowly disappear, she begins a search for answers within the infinite. The candid narrative evolves into a stunning, abstract deconstruction of time and space, piloting the reader precariously close to the unanswered question, "Why are we here?"

Among the subjects she touches on: the fastest man on earth, wind farms and tunnels, and the anechoic (without echo) chamber at Harvard University. We hear about some of history's oddest seekers of spiritual and scientific knowledge: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of cosmonautics; Yves Klein, the "artist of space;" Russian futurist Nikolai Federov; and Houdini, hanging headfirst over a crowd in Times Square. The essays are a blend of conventional narrative, aphorism (The aphorism is a form of eternity, said Nietzsche), lyrical imagery, and language, with insights like, "A voice begins with the thought that must be set apart from a body."

Butler's collection has a true magic of its own, at times both brutal and gorgeous, but always coming back to an empathy of spirit and intelligence far beyond Butler's years.

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From "Bridge"

From the window of the hospital, I watch the sun set in shades of pink and yellow across the sky. To the right, behind the square of low-rise buildings, a church spire reaches up to pierce low accumulated smog. The cars have left the hospital's parking lot below—it was so full before. Just outside the parking lot, kids lope by the ten-foot fence surrounding the hospital. I remember a question my father asked me once. We are driving to a soccer game in Virginia. It is evening and the sun angles through the pine trees along the interstate as my father and I speed along. Without looking up from the road, he says, "I've got a question for you. If you had a friend who wanted to use your eight-story high apartment window to commit suicide, would you let him?" I look up from my book. I wonder which one of his friends has asked him. But I don't know much about his other life. Over the years he has kept quiet about his lover, claiming it was my mother's decision to separate. I have wanted him to tell me everything, imagining that only then will I be able to know him.

"So what's the verdict?" he asks.

And I want to give the right answer, the one my father wants to hear. I watch as he drifts away. I try to lure him back. "How about you? What do you think?"

"Yes, I would let him." He keeps nodding as though there are things left unsaid, as though his thoughts go on, but this is all I am privy to. It feels like some dramatic moment so I don't speak. And I wonder if he is asking for permission. I think we'll never go fast enough. We focus on the road sprinting toward us and watch the darker horizon blend with the ground that rises beyond.

Blurbs

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An intimate look at a mother's death with vignettes exploring art, astronomy, cosmonautics—even Houdini

"Ashley Butler's new book, Dear Sound of Footstep, explores the poetry in dynamic facts, and accumulates stories where life and life's enterprises meet. In this eloquent sequence of essays, the earth and our fantasies of earthly life (and death) perform dynamic rituals of relation. Relation itself takes on an array of forms, bounded by the adventures of young adulthood, and the fears of leaving nothing, or everything, behind. Dear Sound of Footstep is a lovely debut."

—Thalia Field

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