Operated on as an infant, without anesthesia, Wendy began life at war with her body. There were tubes everywhere, in and out of every opening, her mother reminded her on every anniversary of her surgery.

Autobiography of a Sea Creature: Healing the Trauma of Infant Surgery takes readers on Williams’ difficult sensory journey toward healing as she communes along the way with horseshoe crabs, dolphins, and other marine life that taught her the restorative power of beauty, resilience, and interdependence. At times luscious and lyrical, at other times analytical and reflective, this literary memoir portrays the dissociative experience of trauma and the roots of self-destructive cycles as well as the tragic results of medical beliefs at the time that infants could not feel pain. Autobiography of a Sea Creature is both a love letter to the earth and a hopeful testament of humans’ capacity to heal our deepest wounds.

Wendy will be introducing the book, giving background about why she wrote it. She will read excerpts and after each one, she will discuss the issues it brings up and give background information on the medical practices back in the 1950s. She will discuss more about the consequences of infant surgery without anesthesia in today’s society.