Facing Fear

Reviews / Votes

"We are all going to die. The real question, the question basic to confronting our fears, is how are we going to live." - from Facing Fear "For Judith Strasser, September 11th was the start of a life-changing exploration of the very nature of fear and courage, a search she details in her wonderful book. This journey sends her back to her earlier recovery from cancer and her memories of a brutal murder, as well as out into the world to a Colombian community devoted to peace in spite of living daily with both fear and violence.... Facing Fear offers an abundance of insights without once faltering into self-help cliches. Instead, Strasser takes us with her, sharing her hard-won knowledge and guiding us along a precarious path that ends in hope." - Jesse Lee Kercheval, author of The Alice Stories "I was reading Judith Strasser's brilliant examination of the cross-section between violence and hatred during the same week that a gunman who wanted to kill liberals and homosexuals attacked a children's show at a Unitarian meeting house in Tennessee. We live in tenuous times when unspeakable crimes are committed. But those crimes are not unexplainable - at least not for those in possession of Strasser's compelling consideration of our difficult circumstances and prospects for escaping them." - John Nichols, correspondent for The Nation "Facing Fear covers a large array of terrifying situations, ranging from the author's own cancer to murders of a peace community in Colombia, with an eye on how ordinary people have managed not to be overwhelmed, not to be hysterical, but rather to live as much and as calmly as possible in the present." - James P. Gustafson, M.D., professor of psychiatry, University of Wisconsin - Madison"