Book Review: Comforts of the Abyss

Throughout his growth as a writer, acclaimed poet Philip Schultz has battled with the dark voice in his head—the “shitbird,” as his late friend the poet Ralph Dickey termed it—that whispers his insecurities and questions his ability to create. Persona writing, a method of borrowing the voice and temperament of accomplished writers, offers him imaginative distance and perspective on his own negative inclinations.

In this candid and generous book, Schultz reflects on his early life in an immigrant neighborhood of upstate New York, his first writing experiments inspired by Ernest Hemingway and John Keats, his struggles with dyslexia, and the failures he witnessed in his father’s life and his own. Through surprising, sometimes humorous, and encouraging encounters with the writers who influence him—including Elizabeth Bishop, Joan Didion, and Norman Mailer—as well as moving experiences of loss, Schultz learns how to fashion personas out of pain.

Comforts of the Abyss will be published on June 7 of 2022. W. W. Norton and Company provided me an early galley for this honest review.

While I was expecting a lot more instructional how-to out of a creative writing focused book, I still got a good bit from this one and discovered a fascinating author in the process.

Prior to this, I was unfamiliar with the work of Philip Schultz. He is the author of eight poetry collections, including Luxury and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Failure, as well the memoir My Dyslexia, and The Wherewithal, a novel in verse. The founder of The Writers Studio, he has been teaching creative writing since 1971.

Through this new book, Schultz reflects upon events of his life. He grew up in Rochester, NY, which gives me a bit of a connection to him. My father also grew up in Rochester and that is where I eventually went to college for my undergraduate degree. Schultz ties his story into writing, in particular first-person narratives by many great authors whom he encountered in his life. In a number of ways, this all reminded me of the literature electives I took in college. It was both scholarly and insightful.