Healing America's Narratives

The What

Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow is scheduled for an early October 2022 release. We have just launched a fundraiser (https://donorbox.org/healing-america-s-narratives) to support the production and promotion of the book through the end of 2023. Even if the fundraiser is of no interest to you, I’d love for you to keep reading to learn a bit about the book.

The How, the Why & a Little More What

From a narrow(ish) perspective I’ve spent just about every day of the last three years, and intermittent chunks of the last seven years, working on this project. From a broader perspective, I’ve spent the better part of the past four-plus decades making choices, learning, and engaging with a wonderful variety of individuals and communities in order to write this particular book the particular way that I’ve written it—although I didn’t know I was doing that amid the doing. The specifics of this book and the number of years aside, the general trajectory described in this paragraph is not unique to me or this project. We all end up where we are based on things that happen, choices we make, what we do, and with whom.

The stories I was given in the years immediately following my 1954 birth, as what would today be characterized as a second-generation, New York Italian-American, Catholic, heterosexual, cisgender working-class male, were given as true. A few have held up; most have not. (Details are in chapters one and twelve of the book). Everyone receives a set of cultural givens in the early years of life. How have yours held up?

Despite the inherent dangers therein, I’m assuming you may be attuned to the dignities and disasters of the United States of America in this third decade of the twenty-first century, and you’re concerned with the current trajectory of the country (as I am). I believe Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, and Our Collective National Shadow helps make sense of America’s current state of affairs. Seen through the lenses of history, psychology, politics, and spirituality, where the country is now not only makes sense, but may have been inevitable. See the excerpted testimonials and reviews at the end of this article for some views of others who seem to agree with me.

The You (so to speak)

Those of you who know me reasonably well know that writing and sending a promotional message like this, especially for my own work, is akin to getting root canal sans anesthesia. I also know that advocating for what I believe in is fine and necessary.

Here are some ways you can learn more about the book and help expand the community of folks who are interested in healing America’s narratives and owning and integrating the country’s collective Shadow. Some of these ideas are further expanded on the book’s website and on the fundraising page:

• Forward this email and otherwise share its message with folks you think would be interested. Feel free to edit.
• If you use social media, let others know about the book, preferably with a link to https://healingamericasnarratives.com/, https://donorbox.org/healing-america-s-narratives, or the Kindle pre-order page.
• Once the book is released, buy it, read it, and tell others about it.
• Review the book (please read it first!)—locally, on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other platform that you engage. You can give it a thumbs up or down and leave a comment at Kirkus Reviews.
• Inform your local libraries and booksellers of the book, provide them with a copy or two as a gift if you can afford to do that. Give them a one-page or four-page promotional PDF.
• Inform local media (or national media if you have access) about the book.
• Inform educators in higher and secondary education about the book, especially, but not only, folks concerned with history, psychology, politics, current affairs, spirituality, and the humanities in general.
• Related to the above, if you are involved with, or know someone who is involved with state or national organizations or associations like the American Psychological Association, the National Education Association and its state affiliates, or other professional organizations that might be interested, literally, in healing America’s narratives, let them know about the book.

Thanks for reading this far. The excerpted testimonials/reviews follow.

Testimonials & Reviews

“Stunning, insightful, intelligent, and fearless, this book deserves a place among the great narratives of the American psyche. Reggie Marra achieves something extraordinary here…” —Trebbe Johnson, author of?Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth's Broken Places

?“Marra is doing the collective archeology as he explores how Collective shadow multiplies the power of personal shadow exponentially…. giving us the diagnosis and some of the treatment plan we need if we are to survive even into the near future.”—Eduardo Duran (Tiospaye Ta Woapiye Wicasa), Ph.D., Vietnam veteran and author of Healing the Soul Wound: Trauma-Informed Counseling for Indigenous Communities

?“…offers the possibility that troubling truths may also be a healing balm…. an aching love story to an America capable of healing through an evolving imagination of human meaning and possibility.” —from the Foreword by Maureen Walker, Ph.D., author of When Getting Along Is Not Enough: Reconstructing Race in Our Lives and Relationships

“…courageous, compassionate, wise, and visionary…Reggie Marra asks some very deep and challenging questions about who we are as a nation… His socially, politically, and psychologically sophisticated answers are both shocking and self-evident, both outrageous and kind, both arresting and liberating…. Brilliant. Thoroughly researched and referenced. A tour de force. Read it.” —Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., author of?Soulcraft?and The Journey of Soul Initiation

?“Marra brings voices together, rightening history with unprecedented accuracy. In his voice we find a confluence of narratives…. In his hands, history is a living source of healing. Savvy readers will walk away feeling affirmed that from ill-told history, new vistas arise from which to tell whole new personal and collective stories that heal.” —Marianela Medrano, Ph.D., author of Rooting: Selected Bilingual Poems

“In the spirit of kindness, hope, and tenacity, Reggie Marra offers compelling and extensive historical research regarding the deep trauma and dysfunction of which our current social fabric is woven…. He presents connections and angles that have the potential to inspire any person – regardless of history, identity, and experience – to consider the larger picture in a new or shifted way.” —Janet E. Aalfs, author of What the Dead Want Me to Know

“Throughout his eloquent and thorough exploration of America’s collective Shadow, Reggie Marra embraces ‘truth’ both as evidence-based and as an ongoing conversation about things that matter…. the?lingering effect of this book fosters hope and proactively embraces the possibility of a radical shift in how humans interrelate, even—and especially—while some of the worst traits of our humanity are so dismally on display.” —Bridgit Dengel Gaspard, author of The Final 8th:?Enlist Your Inner Selves to Accomplish Your Goals

“Outraged yet hopeful, sweeping in its conclusions…impassioned…. unstinting examinations of historical American failings…. In precise, inviting prose, Marra urges readers to look with clear eyes at ourselves. He makes it clear throughout that he’s one of us rather than some presumed authority, putting in the work to understand himself and his nation….” —Booklife

“An educator’s vision for healing America’s traumatic past and politically fractured present….optimistic in tone, emphasizing hope in the possibility of national healing…. a sophisticated presentation of critical theory, U.S. history and philosophy, the book carefully balances nuance with accessibility and practical application…. A convincing, if occasionally unwieldy, guidebook for a better future.” —Kirkus Reviews