In this alchemy of anger and love, history and memoir, Christine McNair delves into various forms of toxicity in the body—from the effects of two life-threatening preeclampsia diagnoses to chronic illness, sexism in medicine, and the toll of societal expectations.

With catharsis and humour, Toxemia pieces together the complexities of identity, motherhood, and living in a body to share deeply recognizable raw truths through fragments, poems, and stories. McNair captures the wrenching feeling of loss of control in the face of an overwhelming medical diagnosis and the small, endless moments in life that underscore it: worrying about mortality in the middle of the night, revolving medical appointments, self-doubt, and all the ways in which illness interrupts.

Toxemia unravels the toxicities that haunt the human body from within and without. This hybrid work combines lyrical essays, prose poetry, photographs, and more to dip between the sacred and profane to expose—and hold —some of our greatest fears while reaching to mend what’s still possible to mend.

Christine McNair was born on June 6, 1978, (the sixth day of the sixth month at six-fifty-six.) She completed a BA (Hons) from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, with a major in English Literature and a minor in Art History. She also completed a Master’s degree in Conservation Studies (Books and Library Materials) at West Dean College in the UK. Besides being a writer, McNair works full time at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, in a special agency of the Department of Heritage, as a book “doctor” or Conservator. Conflict is her first book.

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