ISBN: 979-8-9903798-1-7
Forthcoming: March 31, 2026
List Price: $18.00
Page Count: 178
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OBJECTS OF AFFECTION
by Kathryn DeZur
A researched memoir in essays that explores what objects can tell us about our history, our culture, and the people around us
One February morning, Kathryn DeZur receives a disturbing email from a stalker. She makes the difficult decision to move her family away from the first real home she’s ever known. Deciding what to keep and what to leave behind brings back memories of her childhood: the mother who died of alcoholism and the father who wasn’t there when DeZur needed him most. What follows is part memoir, part meditation on the many possessions—and traumas—we inherit. In the absence of control, we turn to objects: a childhood doll, an antique revolver, a mother’s silk dress. All serve as evidence of our own lived experience.
DeZur illuminates how our possessions situate us on a continuum between the past and present. Objects of Affection is about the identity we build through our attachments to places and things, both here and absent.
Praise for Objects of Affection and Kathryn DeZur
“Objects of Affection is an intimate and introspective look at life and its complexities. It is full of wisdom that relates to all of our lives. Like good medicine (without any bad side effects), this book has the power to make us healthier and stronger.”
—Dr. Adam Dorsay, author of Super Psyched: Unleash the Power of the 4 Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love
“In Objects of Affection, Kathryn DeZur brings together found items from mythology, history, biology, and more to create a compelling narrative of family, trauma, and love that is as tightly woven as any sweetgrass basket. She questions the reliability of memory even as she draws us through her own, leading us to profound, universal truths: Love should be unconditional, children should be cared for, and the things we carry need not be perfect. In the end, we’re left with one unassailable truth: We must love ourselves—and, no matter what we’ve done or what’s been done to us, we deserve that love. An incredible journey that will change how you see the smallest details of the world.”
—Katie Rose Pryal, author of Your Kid Belongs Here
“A slim book of enormous power. Like the Japanese art of kintsugi, these essays show that a broken bowl repaired with gold is lovelier than the original. There is much pain here; but it has been faced and extinguished like a forest fire.”
—Roger Kuin, author of Chamber Music: Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences and the Pleasure of Criticism
Kathryn DeZur
Kathryn DeZur is an essayist, poet, photographer, and avid treasure-hunter. Her Substack, Cabinet of Wonders, focuses on the awe and ambivalence of what we have, what we make, what we mend, and what our things might say about us. She has published a poetry chapbook, Blue Ghosts, in addition to essays in HerStry, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, and The Nassau Review. She is a Professor Emerita of English at SUNY Delhi. She lives and writes in the northern Catskill Mountains. Find her at kathryndezur.com, or on Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.