My Clavicle: And Other Massive Misalignments

On an international flight to a writer’s conference, the writer Marta Sanz notices a tiny bump, something she calls a tick, on her chest, just below her clavicle, near her breast bone. It comes with a pain she has never felt before and she is struck with terror. However, this is no instance of mere anxiety or hypochondria. In Spanish, the title is Clavícula, which refers to the collarbone, but also makes a direct pun in that language on the word clavé or key. Soon we realize that something has changed for Marta, and that whatever has happened, however hard to explain, is not just “in her head” but something which is locked up or suddenly hidden away.  At the same time, the mystery reflects in everything the author encounters, but especially the bodies of women, and especially women of a certain age. My Clavicle is a masterpiece of auto fiction, the narration of the episodes fracturing like the author’s body into a deeply moving series of vignettes that never lose their tension: imperfect, obsessive, but also full of love. Marta doesn’t have children; her job (a successful and celebrated novelist in Spain) is nevertheless stressful; she is an only child with aging parents; her husband is out of work and a bit adrift even as he continues to adore his wife; and she worries about money — because her “success” is not, has never been, financial. One thing is certain: desire, in any form, has become elusive. The difficulty of giving a name to Marta’s pain, of even locating a precise place for it, provokes a number of reflections: about the edge that separates the body from scientific definitions and imagination; about the function of poetry; about our intolerance for psychological gray areas; about anxiety as a pathology of late stage capitalism; and in the face of daily headlines, the perversion of a public health system. Ultimately, Marta’s attempts to define something impossible are channeled through her strange and roving pain, manifesting in curiosity, poetry, and love. Read more