Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life Book

An unusual book, beautifully written. Shawn became a full-blown agoraphobic as a young adult, and remains at the time of this book's writing a few years ago (his late 50s) terrified of open spaces, enclosed spaces, flying, and traveling, among other things. He examines his phobias from many angles, including family history, biology, evolution, and psychoanalysis. There isn't a moment of self-pity in the book--only a grief for lost experiences. At the same time Shawn persuasively argues that our weakness and strengths are inextricable and suggests that some of the joys he has had in life (he is a composer and a teacher of music) might not have been as intense or even as likely if he had been phobia-free. On the subject of his childhood family life (which will be of helpless interest of anyone interested in the deep past of The New Yorker; his father William Shawn was the magazine's longtime editor), he manages to reveal disturbing details without souring his account with resentment or blame. Shawn is a sensitive reader of poetry, which he weaves into his tale to its benefit. I closed this book filled with admiration for its author, and a much greater understanding both of clinical phobias and of the more garden-variety avoidant behavior from which nearly all of us suffer.