Claire Dederer - Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

Additional Praise for Poser

Let me be honest about something: I love yoga, I live for yoga, and yoga has changed my life foreverbut it is very difficult to find books about yoga that arent incredibly annoying. Im sorry to say it, but yoga sometimes makes people talk like jerks. Thank goodness, then, for Claire Dederer, who has written the book we all need: the long-awaited funny, smart, clear-headed, thoughtful, truthful, and inspiring yoga memoir. To simplify my praise: I absolutely loved this book.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Dederer proves an effective storyteller. She knows how to set up a punch line, how to foreshadow a big moment, how to create drama out of the everyday bits of life. Yoga is the catalyst, the act that repeatedly forces her to look inward.

Bill Eichenberger, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

An unusually welcoming and unpretentious spiritual memoir, one in which love is the measure, and yoga just one of several ways to find it.

Whole Living

Dederer uses acerbic wit and intelligence to help explain how something as seemingly simple as nursing has become another fraught factor in competitive parenting. An admirable lack of sentimentalitya charming and clever writer.

Amy Rowland, The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Her descriptions of [Seattle] over the past decade are often hilarious, but its the close-to-the-bone soul-searching that will stay with you.

Seattle Weekly

Unfailingly hilarious[A] strong voice and wisecracking style.

Joanne Latimer, Macleans

Even non-yogis wont be able to get enough of this funny, honest memoir. Dederer is an irresistible narrator.

Elisabeth Egan, Self

Dederers writing is sharp and often acidly funny. Its Dederers touching introspection that makes Poser an inspiring readshes not some self-righteous disciple of yoga, shes a skeptical, vulnerable person. She demystifies both yoga and domesticity, delivering a meditation on the subtle comforts that bring us peace and joy, both on the mat and in the world.

Jeanne Kolker, Wisconsin State Journal

Poser achieves something rare: Its a contemporary book about yoga that doesnt leave you squirming, suspect, or bored. The illusion of commiseration here is really just a triumph of truth-telling, of a writer having the courage to confront her limits and sit, uncritically, in the messy present. Like a yoga pose, it doesnt have to be perfect to be exquisite. [It] is the output of a curious, vivid mind, one that opens every box and asks questions about its contents.

Judith Lewis Mernit, Los Angeles Times

Dederer immediately establishes herself as a relatable, down-to-earth narrator, a person who might kick up to headstand at a party, but only after a few drinks.

Jennie Yabroff, Newsweek

A deeply personal, often hilarious memoir of her practice of yoga, and yogas transformation of her heart.

Anne Saker, The Oregonian

Dedererscharming memoir is about figuring out how to be at once good and free.

Jennifer Bradley, The New Republic

Poser is a bracingly honest investigation of family and freedom, parenting and perfectionism. It is also funny enough to make most writers swoon with envy.

James Marcus, author of Amazonia

While what Dederer learns in the yoga studio is the thread that holds the work together, it is her exploration of her inner self that makes the work shine. Dederer, an accomplished journalist and professional book reviewer, faces many of the same nagging insecurities that most adult women experience at some point. Her concerns about being the perfect mother, being a supportive wife, and being a career person are ones that will resonate with readers. Poser is by turns funny, sad, and serious. Some of Dederers revelations are at times surprising, but the work is as quick-paced and fluid as a yoga jump through. Fans of yoga definitely should not miss this work, though it is a great read for anyone.

Mollie Smith Waters, The Montgomery Advertiser

Dederers book is clever, witty. Her journeyis about her relationship with yoga, told through the poses she attempts, and the lesson(s) she learns from those poses. Mothers may relate to much of what she writesbut readers will still be able to relate to her reflections onhow she struggles to deal with what she perceives as the loss of her professional persona.

Muna Khan, The Express Tribune

Dederers humor is tangy and precision-aimed; her targets are the sine qua non of memoirs: mothers and marriage. A book reviewer and social critic with bylines in The New York Times, Slate, and Vogue, Dederer acidly deconstructs hip, politically correct Seattle. Dederer writes superbly and offers sharp insights into family dynamics as well as hatha yogas impact on American life, the focus of a growing number of groundbreaking books.

Donna Seaman, Booklist

This funny, spectacularly well-observed, and moving book does what even yoga cant: It provides solace while making you laugh. I feel three inches taller.

Henry Alford, author of How to Live

Thoughtfulfull of grace.

Suzi Feay, The Independent (London)

Dederers wickedly humorous look at liberal West Coast culture seems to have struck a generational nerve. Yoga works as a metaphor for the book, which is about finding ones balance in every sense of the word.

Chris Henry, Kitsap Sun (Washington)

The wry, self-deprecating tone is a wise choice. It punctuates pretension, and makes Dederers periodic forays into seriousness all the more convincing. [An] ambitious book.

Olivia Laing, New Statesman (London)

Claire Dederer is all these women: a daughter attempting to make sense of an irresistibly nutty divorce; a new mother trying to meet the standards of a peculiarly liberal breed of ber-moms; a wife struggling to salvage intimacy in a marriage slammed by exhaustion, mortgage payments, and encroaching in-laws; and a lost soul who stumbles into a yoga studio and finds salvation. Above all, Dederer is a brilliant writer whose prose sparkles and cuts deep. Poser is a book you will want to immediately share with your friends. Its hilarious, unflinching, and bursting with love.

Maria Semple, author of This One Is Mine

FOR

MOM

DAD

AND

LARRY

Even in favorable conditions, a person encounters struggle.

SWAMI KRIPALVANANDA

Authors Note

Some of the events and people in this story have been run through the scrambler, to use Clive Jamess phrase. Ive tinkered with the chronology of a few events for the sake of narrative flow or discretion. Ive changed the names and identifying characteristics of some, but not all, of the people.

Those changes aside, this is a true story, constructed from memory.

Contents

Prologue: Camel

Taking up yoga in the middle of your life is like having someone hand you a dossier about yourself. A dossier full of information youre not really sure you want.

I hadnt been doing yoga long when the information began to come in. One cloudy January afternoon, twenty of us were lowering ourselves backward into camel pose, as slowly and tentatively as swimmers entering cold water.

We kneeled on our mats, our feet sticking straight out behind us. The idea was this: You reached back with both hands and grabbed your heels. You thrust your hips forward. Meanwhile, your chest rose up into the air. It seemed a little porny, but I was willing to give it an honest try.

I did it once. My hands reached. My hips thrust. My chest, I hoped, rose. My lower back crimped. I came out of the pose, which was at least as scary as going into the pose.