emma carey book review

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The woman who fell to Earth: ‘As we continued to plummet, a sudden terror ripped through me’

Emma Carey was 20 when, instead of floating on to a field in Switzerland, she came crashing down. It began a new chapter in her life and a long process of recovery from paraplegia

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It started like this.

The deafening beats of the propellers matched the thundering of my heart. I felt electric as the ground shrank beneath us, snow-capped mountains disappearing into the landscape – a patchwork of green, brown and white as the grey sky yawned open around me, large and endless. The town below looked like a dollhouse, and then an oil painting, as we rose.

Just as I thought we must almost be at the right altitude to jump, my instructor told me we hadn’t even reached halfway.

I startled at my own insignificance as the helicopter continued dizzyingly upwards – a similar feeling to when you look into the night sky and realise that you’re looking into the past.

An anxiety that I hadn’t been expecting caught in my throat, and the memory of my signature over a dotted line flashed back to me – suddenly the danger laid out in a black-and-white liability form felt somewhat plausible.

My hand entwined with Jemma’s, I turned to my instructor. Eager for reassurance, I asked how many times he had jumped. The number was absolutely staggering, and I imagined that he had spent more time in midair than he had with his feet on the ground.

This reassured me, along with his honest answer when I asked if anyone had ever been injured diving with him. He told me about a jumper who had broken their ankle on landing a couple of years ago, and his candour and warmth in the telling comforted me.

And then before I knew it, it was time. Fourteen thousand feet in the air, the door of the helicopter opened. As the wind rushed in, it felt as if all my senses were coming alive. This sensation was what I’d been craving, this is what my life in all its daily monotony had been missing.

Jemma and I looked at each other, her fear obvious through the tears welling in her eyes. I felt a pang in my heart knowing that my love of adrenaline was the only reason she was here, but I gave her one last squeeze and let go of her hand. Strapped to my instructor, I turned towards the door and a new version of myself.

For a moment we sat on the edge of the helicopter, legs dangling in the space between who I was and who I was about to become.

And then I was falling.

The instructor had launched us from the edge, throwing us into wide open nothingness. I remembered the instructions we’d been given on the ground and moved my body into the correct position-and just like that, the world stopped. The sound of the helicopter, the sound of the air whooshing by, the sound of my screaming voice-it all became silent. I was flying.

I was enraptured by the picturesque ground below: the snowy alps, the winding rivers, the endless green farmlands. Again, that feeling of insignificance overwhelmed me and all the troubles I’d left on the ground no longer mattered. This was where I was meant to be. Everything seemed so clear; an undeniable sense of peace in the chaos. It was like a nudge from the future whispering, “Remember this feeling, this is what happiness feels like.”

A tap on my shoulder pulled me from my epiphany. We’d been told the tap meant the parachute was about to be pulled. I crossed my arms over my chest and prepared myself for the jolt of the parachute slowing us down.

When it came, it felt like my hair was being ripped from my head and I was surprised at the pain – no one had warned me that it would hurt. I expected my instructor to say something, to give me a high-five like I’d seen in videos online, but he didn’t move, and as we continued to plummet a sudden terror ripped through me.

Why weren’t we slowing down? It had been hard to tell at first, because when you’re that high up you barely notice the shift in the landscape as you fall towards it, but as you get closer suddenly you notice the drop of every foot – details on the ground below start blooming into clarity.

Then I saw it, the parachute. Red like a warning, it whipped before me in a tangled mess. It hadn’t opened. I screamed at the instructor, desperate as an indescribable wave of panic consumed me. He didn’t answer and I wondered if he was even attached to me any more. I couldn’t turn my head against the velocity of the wind, I could only watch as the Earth seemed to come forwards to meet me. I knew we were about to crash, I knew there’d been some kind of mistake, I knew we were only seconds away from impact, but I hadn’t yet thought about what that meant. The gravity of the situation dawned on me as quickly as it was pulling me down – I was about to die.

My desire to live pounded through my veins with increasing urgency and I felt fear beyond anything I had ever experienced before. “Fear.” What a dull word for what it is. I imagined the sandwich I’d made earlier that morning waiting for me on the ground. The clothes in the washing machine that would never get a chance to dry. My half-packed bag sitting on my bed, belongings thrown carelessly around the room in the implicit belief that I would return safely to pack them away. How was this happening? I wasn’t ready for this yet.

I wanted to live. The longing was palpable – for my future, my old age, my sandwich. I wanted all of these things but mostly I wanted to scream at myself for only realising I wanted them once it was too late.

The ground was so close now, and the beautiful rolling fields I’d been admiring moments ago now looked hard and unforgiving. I wondered what being dead would feel like; I wondered if I would know that I had died. And then I realised that the fear coursing through my body was the last thing I would ever feel.

My death was so close I could almost touch it.

I hit the ground and the force was strong enough to alter an entire universe.

I wasn’t dead. Well, at least I was pretty sure I wasn’t. I could hear myself panting and I could taste the blood filling my mouth. I was face down in an expanding pool of dirt, blood and shock. I didn’t understand. How could I not be dead? I wasn’t even unconscious. I had somehow remained completely awake for the moment of impact. I wondered how rare that was, to be so acutely present at the precise moment your world changes.

There was a split second of relief, followed by total disbelief and confusion. I couldn’t accept that I had just been in a skydiving accident. Things like that don’t happen in real life. Not in my world. I was supposed to be running over to my best friend, arms outstretched, with a smile so wide at the sheer rush of being alive.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Through the blur came a solitary coherent thought. I was hit with the sudden and panicked realisation that help wasn’t coming. We hadn’t landed where we were supposed to land, there was nobody around to see it happen, and we were in the middle of the Swiss Alps. I had thought after surviving the fall my life was guaranteed, but it dawned on me that until I got help, I was still living on borrowed time. I had no idea how I was going to get out of there, but I knew it was up to me to go and search for help. I didn’t know if it was humanly possible to move through the pain, but it was my only chance to be saved.

I inhaled a shaky breath, gathered all my remaining strength, gritted my teeth together and prepared to do what I knew I had to. I began to roll over to get the instructor off me and, just like that, the Earth stopped turning. In a single moment, the life I knew, my heart, my spirit, every plan I had ever made and every ounce of who I was, were shattered.

My legs wouldn’t move.

My soul dropped. Time froze.

I had only landed seconds ago, but time didn’t seem to flow like it used to. In fact, it didn’t seem to exist at all. Everything was happening so fast that I barely had time to comprehend my reality, yet on the other hand it was passing so slowly that I had multiple streams of thought at once.

I still couldn’t believe any of it was real. I couldn’t fathom why half of my body would suddenly stop working. Then it hit me. I must have broken my back. The realisation was so obvious yet utterly shattering. I didn’t know how I was only just figuring this out. I’d seen this scene play out in so many movies – when someone loses feeling in their legs, they’re always told not to move. I had been throwing myself around trying to get up from under the instructor. I thought for sure that I must have brought this injury on myself, that my back hadn’t broken until I started moving.

My chest was hurting even more than my back now. It was so heavy I could barely breathe. I didn’t know where the pain was coming from at first but then suddenly I understood. It was heartbreak. It was worse than all the physical pain. The loss felt worse than death. My body was ruined. My one body. I had to live in this body for the rest of my life and I had destroyed it. I felt claustrophobic in my own skin.

I had always thought the saying “you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone” was a clichéd lie. I can now tell you from the bottom of my heart that it’s not. In that moment, I could feel the weight of its truth pushing down on me with so much force that it was impossible to ignore. That morning I’d woken up in the bunk of our cabin feeling melancholic and unappreciative. Now there was only one thought in my mind. Distinct, definite and soul-destroying: My life was perfect two minutes ago and I didn’t even know.

This is an edited extract from The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Emma Carey, published by Allen and Unwin, out now.

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The Girl Who Fell From The Sky

Book review, todd kuchel.

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky is a non-fiction which shares the Author, Emma Carey’s very own incredible story of how she survived a 14,000-foot free-fall drop without a parachute.

In 2013 at 20 years of age, Emma was holidaying in Switzerland when she chose to sky dive for the very first time.

It would have been a normal, short-lived thrill were it not for an accident that left her plummeting to the ground without a parachute.

With her spinal cord severely crushed, she was forced to adapt to a new life in a spinal ward, with the news that she would never walk again.

Whilst the book certainly contains details of the accident, it’s actually Emma’s recovery, life choices and attitude towards life that makes this story most remarkable.

With a newfound grit and determination, and with luck on her side, the book delves into the long road that lead to Emma walking again.

Ten years on from the accident, Emma is making the most of her legs, and living by the words, ‘If you can, you must’, with dreams to travel, explore and enjoy the adventures that this life we are given, has to offer.

Emma’s belief that waking up happy and grateful each day is a choice, not something that is given to us, is sure to give readers a better outlook on life.

This book is both confronting and inspirational, highlighting what life is like for those living with a disability. This is definitely a book that should be on everyone’s to-be-read list!

Todd Kuchell

Contributor // the barossa mag, the barossa's best stories direct to your inbox..., follow us on instagram @https://www.instagram.com/thebarossamag, the people the places the experience, subscribe now, no thanks, i'm good., become a partner of the barossa mag, get in touch, leave your details here and we will get in touch with you....

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky: An extraordinary true story of resilience, courage, hope and finding lightness after the heaviest of landings

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THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY

Signed copies of my memoir 'The Girl Who Fell From The Sky'. There on that helicopter, somewhere over Switzerland on a Sunday in June, came the first tiny whisper. A voice that would carry me for years to come. 'I'm going to be ok. There's still joy here.' When Emma Carey was twenty, she fell from 14,000 feet and survived. In The Girl Who Fell From the Sky Emma tells us the inspirational story of how, through one of her greatest tragedies, she found her truest self. From waking in the hospital a paraplegic to learning how to use her legs again, through the six-year long court case and now being finally free to make the most of her life, Emma teaches us the importance of courage and resilience. This heartfelt book is more than a memoir, it's a call to action that reminds us not to take our lives and abilities for granted - to live every day like it could be our last. 'I love this woman's outlook and her attitude. She's formidable and indomitable, but in a totally sunny and loveable way. Thank you Em for sharing your story with the world. It helps all of us.' TURIA PITT 'Emma Carey has proven that no matter what life throws her way, nothing can dim her fire.' MICHELLE AND ZARA, SHAMELESS PODCAST 'Emma Carey is a powerhouse. This book will change a lot of perceptions of what you think it's like to live with disability.' DYLAN ALCOTT 'The accident honestly is the least interesting thing about Em Carey. The real story is the remarkable lens with which she views the world. I truly believe that the moment that changed her life could also change yours.' SAM MAC

Out of stock

Emma Carey taught herself to walk again — now she is sharing her new appreciation for life

Emma Carey was only 20 years old when she suffered shocking injuries in a parachuting accident that left her paraplegic, yet less than five years later she believes the experience ultimately changed her life for the better.

On June 9, 2013, Ms Carey was skydiving with her best friend in the Swiss Alps on the trip of a lifetime, but when her parachute deployed it did not open properly.

Ms Carey was virtually freefalling when she hit the ground, breaking her L1, her pelvis, and shattering most of her teeth.

She spent four months recovering in hospital, learning how to use a body that was numb from the waist down.

She was told she would never walk again.

But Ms Carey, now 25 and living on the Gold Coast, said instead of letting her accident dictate her life she chose to view it from a different perspective, and spends her time helping people all over the world do the same.

A new way of thinking

Through her popular Instagram account, Ms Carey shares what it is like to live as a paraplegic who learned to walk again.

She posts about her physical progress and setbacks (of which there have been several), her friends and their road trips, her drawings and even the seldom-discussed world of self-administered catheters and enemas.

But the recurring theme across all of Ms Carey's posts is one of appreciation.

"The biggest impact [the accident] has had on my life positively would be just the fact that my whole view and perspective of life is totally different to what it was before; I just enjoy every day and everything in my body so much more," Ms Carey said.

"I guess I just try not to take anything for granted."

It is a mindset she has tried to share with her followers — especially young girls who are dealing with body image and self-esteem issues.

"I think just giving people a new perspective of how to look at their body that they might not have even thought of before is really important. Look at your body for what it does, rather that just how it looks," Ms Carey said.

"So instead of thinking, 'Oh my legs are a little bit fat', you think, 'Oh my legs work, they have muscles, they let me walk, and they let me jump'.

"Or instead of thinking, 'I don't like my eye colour', you think, 'My eyes let me see the world; they let me look at the people I love'.

"I think it's a lot harder to hate your body or point out things that are wrong with it when you realise how much it does for you — it's a lot easier to love it."

Talks and tears

Since last year, Ms Carey has started writing a book and, most recently, performed motivational talks to share her story in person.

It was during one of these talks on the Gold Coast this month, when young girls were approaching her in tears, that she realised the impact of her efforts.

"People were coming up to me and genuinely crying, saying how much my posts have helped them or changed their view on things, or changed their life," she said.

"Even though I know people read it, it's really hard to comprehend that it can have an effect on people's lives until they're there telling you."

An 'authentic influencer'

University of Queensland social media expert Dr Nicholas Carah said Ms Carey's posts resonated with people because of their honesty and authenticity.

"One of the things I've seen emerge on Instagram is this new sort of person called an 'influencer'. They create these accounts that get lots of engagement because of the authenticity of their storytelling," Dr Carah said.

He said social media could be likened to a "continuous reality TV show, but produced by yourself" in the sense that it enabled more people to document their lives and speak in public than was possible before.

"In the past, when someone had a traumatic event or a story about overcoming hardship, they might have written a book or periodically appeared on a radio program ... what social media enables is this kind of continuous first-person storytelling.

"In the case of [Ms Carey], that is to speak about issues that don't get lots of coverage in mainstream media, or speak from a lived experience that's not particularly visible otherwise."

Ms Carey has shared stories of losing bowel or bladder control in public, she has talked about experiencing panic attacks and she regularly discusses how she has learnt to use a "totally different body that doesn't function properly".

But despite all those daily reminders of living with a spinal cord injury, Ms Carey would not change a thing.

"I always thought that after my accident, because it was something so devastating, I didn't think there was any way that could possibly become a good thing. But it really has; my life is so much better for it," she said.

"A bad situation can turn into the best thing that ever happened to you, if you make it."

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Aussie woman survives plummeting thousands of metres to Earth

A young Australian woman has shared the terrifying moment she almost died when a skydiving adventure overseas went horribly wrong.

Emma Carey and her friend Gemma were travelling in Europe in 2013 when they decided to go skydiving while in Switzerland.

But as video shows Emma smiling on what should have been one of the most exciting adventures of her life, she had no idea that moments later - that excitement would turn to terror.

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"I was having fun there - It is weird to think that version of me had no idea what was one minute ahead," Emma told Today Extra of the video footage above.

As Emma and her tandem instructor plummeted from thousands of metres above the Earth, she waited for him to tap her on the shoulder for the parachute pull.

But as they continued to fall, gaining more and more speed, he remained silent.

"I was yelling out to him. I thought either he can't hear me or he was trying to fix something, but actually he was unconscious the whole time," she said.

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The cord had become wrapped around the instructor's neck and was strangling him.

So he was unable to cut the tangled cords free or let Emma know what was happening.

As the situation unfolded, Emma's friend - who had jumped moments after her - watched on from above in horror.

"I got to the ground, I was on my stomach and the instructor was on my back," Emma said.

"I was pinned down and couldn't see anything around, but I did not get knocked out."

Jemma landed two minutes later and ran to her friend with emergency services already on the phone.

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From there, Emma spent four months in hospital, undergoing rehabilitation and requiring a wheelchair to get around.

But with hard work and the support of Jemma while they were stuck in Europe, Emma regained the ability to walk.

Now, she has written a memoir of the ordeal in hopes it will encourage others in a similar situation to keep fighting and not give up on themselves.

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky is available online and through all good book stores.

Watch the full segment above

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Emma Carey - the girl who fell from the sky - embraces life after skydiving accident

One second. That's all it was. One second was the difference between the life Emma Carey had and the one she got.

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If the parachute had been pulled one second earlier, or even one second later, you would have landed safely and all this could have been avoided

That's what a policeman told Carey as she lay in hospital in Switzerland in 2013, paralysed from the waist down after surviving an horrific skydiving accident. The then 20-year-old from Canberra, on a trip of a lifetime to Europe, had plummeted 4.5km to the ground, landing face-first in a field, with her instructor unconscious on top of her after their parachute and emergency chute deployed at the same time and tangled mid-air.

Emma not only survived, she learnt to walk again and she learnt to love life more than she ever had. There was no more taking sunsets and good coffee for granted ever again.

Nearly a decade later, speaking on the phone from her new home on the Gold Coast, the former Canberran sounds like pure sunshine. "Oh sorry, I think there's a lawnmower or something next door. I'll just shut this door," she says, apologising with a little laugh.

After reading her book, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky , it's absolutely evident that Carey has embraced life, that she is eternally grateful to be alive, but that she doesn't sugarcoat her remarkable journey. She is pragmatic. She is raw. And she is honest. The book sounds like someone who has spent a lot of time in the company of nurses. She doesn't bullsh-t.

There is the reality of being disabled, such as having to learn to insert a catheter herself every day so she can go to the toilet.

There are also the often horrifying details of her six-year legal battle to secure compensation for her accident in what should have been an open-and-shut case.

There is coming to terms with the fact her body doesn't work the way it used to. Even out of hospital and walking again, a wound that developed after Emma sat on a hot railing and couldn't feel the heat, took a year to heal.

There were the emotional and social impacts of becoming disabled, of being treated differently if she was in a wheelchair or walking. Of being made to feel she must be okay because she was walking. Right?

Not everything is rainbows and unicorns.

Now 29, Emma, a former St Clare's College student, had the beginnings of her book back in that Swiss hospital bed, where she would jot thoughts and feelings into her phone.

"I've always loved writing," she says. "And especially after my accident, I started to write diary entries which ended up on Instagram. It's always been a very cathartic thing for me to do, especially at that time."

She writes a dedication at the front of the book to herself: For the girl who was lying on the ground, hoping for it all to end, look at how good it got.

"I never was someone who thought I was capable of dealing with hardship and I just took everything for granted," she said.

"I didn't think I'd be someone who could get through something like this but I think that's the case for a lot of people. But I don't think we realise how strong we are unless we are in a difficult situation.

"I wanted to write, especially after COVID and all that, something that people would read and get some hope that life does get better."

A big part of her story is her best friend Jemma Mrdak who went skydiving with her that day and then never left her side. She and Jemma met in Year 1 at St Thomas the Apostle Primary School in Kambah.

Jemma, who now runs her own social media marketing agency in Canberra, remembers that first connection.

"Well, obviously our names rhyme, Emma and Jemma, and I remember us connecting on that aspect and we would always be paired together by the teachers," she remembers.

"And I think we were both drawn to each other's personality. Emma was just a kind, caring, really approachable person and I think we were sat next to each other because of our names and we just clicked from there."

Emma is returning to Canberra next week for two events at Verity Lane where she will be in discussion with Jemma about her life and the courage and resilience she has developed.

"I think that's what she wants to get across with the book, that it's not about the accident, it's about her life now and in particular for the people in the disability community and being a voice for them," Jemma says. "From the outside, Emma doesn't look like she has a disability, because she's able to walk, but there are a lot of complications that have come from that accident that she has to deal with every day.

"So, I think this book will be a real eye-opener about what it's like to live with a disability like hers and for those people who are in wheelchairs and quadriplegics."

Back before the accident, Emma and Jemma attended St Clare's College together. Life, Emma says, was easy. And very active.

"Swimming was definitely my thing. Swam twice a day every day. I loved sports in general. Running. Loved cross-country. Water polo. Just all the sports," she said.

Emma has a date tattooed on her forearm - June 9, 2013, the day of the skydiving accident when she and Jemma were just two best friends enjoying a holiday together.

She says in The Girl Who Fell from the Sky that she was conscious for every moment of those 15,000 feet to the ground. And even when she hit the ground with a force "strong enough to alter an entire universe". She was in unbearable pain. And she couldn't move her legs.

While I was falling to the ground, I had been so petrified of dying that it never crossed my mind there could be something even worse.

My biggest fear was my life was going to be too short, but now I feared that it was going to be far, far too long .

Jemma completed her skydive successfully and ran to her friend's side. She called an ambulance and then Emma's mum back home in Canberra as her best friend was transported to hospital.

"I thought it was a dream. I honestly thought it wasn't happening, it wasn't real," she says, of Emma lying motionless in that field.

"You don't go into an overseas trip with your best friend thinking that kind of thing is going to happen. You're just not prepared for that event to occur."

Scans at the hospital showed Emma had broken her sacrum, sternum, pelvis and L1 vertebrae. Her spinal cord had been crushed. There was no feeling or control below her waist.

Those early days in the Swiss hospital were dark. Emma was put on suicide watch. Jemma never left her side.

Her mother and older sister arrived from Australia. She started seeing beauty in small things. Getting her hair washed for the first time after the accident was a revelation. She was wheeled outside on her bed to feel the sun on her face . She started to feel not quite so sad.

After about a month, Emma was allowed to be flown back to Australia, to a hospital in Sydney where she would spend months rehabilitating in a spinal ward. She writes movingly of the life she found in that ward. Of the patients who were all "clever, kind and hilarious", each struggling so hard to get their broken body working again.

Emma says she had always told people she learnt to walk again slowly and gradually. But, in her book, she says there was a very specific moment when she did walk for the first time, unassisted. In the dead of night across her hospital room to get a chocolate bar she was desperate to eat, but for which she believed wasn't important enough to disturb the nurses. When she got to that chocolate, panting and sweating, a voice in her head said, "Told ya".

"I don't think I've even told my friends that [of her first steps]. Not that I was trying to keep it a secret, it just never came up."

When Emma came home to Canberra, she also had navigate the bewildering world of life outside a hospital ward.

She felt a kind of apathy take her over, when she wanted to regain that same exhilarating lust for life that came after surviving a near-death experience.

• The girl who fell to earth rises as health guru
• Brave recovery for the girl who fell to earth

Even before she expresses it in the book, there is a sense that Canberra is part of her "before" life. Before the accident. Before she found a new lease on life. In Canberra, before the accident, she had been a person in a job she didn't like, riddled with nerves, with "no idea who I was". She felt people pitied her in her wheelchair.

Everyone I knew was accustomed to me being able-bodied and so they could see how much I had lost physically. I heard their quiet whispers and glances of pity as I wheeled myself down the street in my chair.

I didn't need pity though - I needed celebration, because, despite my new reality being different, I felt more 'me' and more alive that I ever had before.

"When I left, I very much wanted a fresh start," Emma says, of moving to the Gold Coast.

"I love Canberra as a place but there were just so many memories of a life that didn't feel like it was mine anymore. So that made me sad to see all the things I was missing, that I was once able to do. I just wanted to start fresh, with no memories attached.

"Then, I guess, over the years when I started to go back to Canberra, it felt odd. It was like there were two very distinct versions of my life, up here and my life and they were very different.

"But, now, so many years have passed, and especially over the last three or four years, I love going back to Canberra. And it's not two distinct things anymore. It's just like, 'That was a part of my life' and 'This is a part of my life' and they're all merged. I go back there all the time to see Jemma. I definitely don't feel sad to go back there."

Emma now believes she is "the luckiest person in the world". She understands what life is all about. She has a large social media following, a platform to inspire people and give voice to those who need it.

And right now, she's savouring becoming a published author.

"I'd love to write more books and see what happens really," she says.

When the book was released this week, Emma wrote on social media that it was "one of the bravest things I've ever done".

"It's petrifying to put your heart into words and then send it out into the world, not knowing how it will be received," she wrote on Instagram.

"My journey is something so precious to me, so sacred and metamorphic - it's never been just a story or something that's up for review - it's my real life."

Jemma, meanwhile, recently married in Port Douglas, and had Emma as her bridesmaid.

"It was such a special day," Jemma says. "I haven't seen Emma cry before but she cried the entire day."

Their friendship is as strong as ever.

"It's something I treasure and cherish every single day," Jemma says.

"She's a sister to me. I'm an only child, so to me she's the sister I always wanted and am so lucky to have."

And as for that life-changing second falling from the sky?

Emma is now grateful for it.

My life - the one I love and embrace and cherish beyond words - would look nothing like it does now if it wasn't for the one moment I'd been longing to change.

• The Girl who Fell from the Sky, by Emma Carey. Allen and Unwin. $32.99.
• Emma Carey will be in conversation with Jemma Mrdak at Verity Lane Market on Tuesday, September 6 at 6.30pm. Tickets from eventbrite.com

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Megan Doherty

I like telling local stories and celebrating Canberra. Email: [email protected]

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Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is written in blood

On Taylor Swift's 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , her artistry is tangled up in the details of her private life and her deployment of celebrity. But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak to and for anyone but herself is audible throughout the album. Beth Garrabrant /Courtesy of the artist hide caption

On Taylor Swift's 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , her artistry is tangled up in the details of her private life and her deployment of celebrity. But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak to and for anyone but herself is audible throughout the album.

For all of its fetishization of new sounds and stances, pop music was born and still thrives by asking fundamental questions. For example, what do you do with a broken heart? That's an awfully familiar one. Yet romantic failure does feel different every time. Its isolating sting produces a kind of obliterating possessiveness: my pain, my broken delusions, my hope for healing. A broken heart is a screaming baby demanding to be held and coddled and nurtured until it grows up and learns how to function properly. This is as true in the era of the one-percent glitz goddess as it was when blues queens and torch singers organized society's crying sessions. It's true of Taylor Swift , who's equated songwriting with the heart's recovery since she released " Teardrops on my Guitar " 18 years ago, and whose 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , is as messy and confrontational as a good girl's work can get, blood on her pages in a classic shade of red.

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Back in her Lemonade days, when her broken heart turned her into a bearer of revolutionary spirit, Swift's counterpart and friendly rival, Beyoncé , got practical, advising her listeners that while feelings do need tending, a secured bank account is what counts. "Your best revenge is your paper," she sang .

For Swift, the best revenge is her pen. One of the first Tortured Poets songs revealed back in February (one of the album's many bonus tracks, it turns out, but a crucial framing device) is called " The Manuscript "; in it, a woman re-reads her own scripted account of a "torrid love affair." Screenwriting is one of a few literary ambitions Swift aligns with this project. At The Grove mall in Los Angeles, Swift partnered with Spotify to create a mini-library where new lyrics were inscribed in weathered books and on sheets of parchment in the days leading up to its release. The scene was a fans' photo op invoking high art and even scripture. In the photographs of the installation that I saw, every bound volume in the library bears Swift's name. The message is clear: When Taylor Swift makes music, she authors everything around her.

For years, Swift has been pop's leading writer of autofiction , her work exploring new dimensions of confessional songwriting, making it the foundation of a highly mediated public-private life. The standard line about her teasing lyrical disclosures (and it's correct on one level) is that they're all about fueling fan interest. But on Tortured Poets , she taps into a much more established and respected tradition. Using autobiography as a sword of justice is a move as ancient as the women saints who smote abusive fathers and priests in the name of an early Christian Jesus; in our own time, just among women, it's been made by confessional poets like Sylvia Plath, memoirists from Maya Angelou to Joyce Maynard and literary stars like the Nobel prize winner Annie Ernaux. And, of course, Swift's reluctant spiritual mother, Joni Mitchell .

Even in today's blather-saturated cultural environment, a woman speaking out after silence can feel revolutionary; that this is an honorable act is a fundamental principle within many writers' circles. "I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay, how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only home I ever have," Natalie Goldberg declares in Writing Down the Bones , the most popular writing manual of the 20th century. When on this album's title track, Swift sings, "I think some things I never say," she's making an offhand joke; but this is the album where she does say all the things she thinks, about love at least, going deeper into the personal zone that is her métier than ever before. Sharing her darkest impulses and most mortifying delusions, she fills in the blank spaces in the story of several much-mediated affairs and declares this an act of liberation that has changed and ultimately strengthened her. She spares no one, including herself; often in these songs, she considers her naiveté and wishfulness through a grown woman's lens and admits she's made a fool of herself. But she owns her heartbreak now. She alone will have the last word on its shape and its effects.

This includes other people's sides of her stories. The songs on Tortured Poets , most of which are mid- or up-tempo ballads spun out in the gossamer style that's defined Swift's confessional mode since Folklore , build a closed universe of private and even stolen moments, inhabited by only two people: Swift and a man. With a few illuminating exceptions that stray from the album's plot, she rarely looks beyond their interactions. The point is not to observe the world, but to disclose the details of one sometimes-shared life, to lay bare what others haven't seen. Tortured Poets is the culmination of a catalog full of songs in which Swift has taken us into the bedrooms where men pleasured or misled her, the bars where they charmed her, the empty playgrounds where they sat on swings with her and promised something they couldn't give. When she sings repeatedly that one of the most suspect characters on the album told her she was the love of her life, she's sharing something nobody else heard. That's the point. She's testifying under her own oath.

Swift's musical approach has always been enthusiastic and absorbent. She's created her own sounds by blending country's sturdy song structures with R&B's vibes, rap's cadences and pop's glitz; as a personality and a performer, she's all arms, hugging the world. The sound of Tortured Poets offers that familiar embrace, with pop tracks that sparkle with intelligence, and meditative ones that wrap tons of comforting aura around Swift's ruminations. Beyond a virtually undetectable Post Malone appearance and a Florence Welch duet that also serves as an homage to Swift's current exemplar/best friendly rival, Lana Del Rey , the album alternates between co-writes with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, the producers who have helped Swift find her mature sound, which blends all of her previous approaches without favoring any prevailing trend. There are the rap-like, conversational verses, the reaching choruses, the delicate piano meditations, the swooning synth beats. Antonoff's songs come closest to her post- 1989 chart toppers; Dessner's fulfill her plans to remain an album artist. Swift has also written two songs on her own, a rarity for her; both come as close to ferocity as she gets. As a sustained listen, Tortured Poets harkens back to high points throughout Swift's career, creating a comforting environment that both supports and balances the intensity of her storytelling.

It's with her pen that Swift executes her battle plans. As always, especially when she dwells on the work and play of emotional intimacy, her lyrics are hyper-focused, spilling over with detail, editing the mess of desire, projection, communion and pain that constitutes romance into one sharp perspective: her own. She renders this view so intensely that it goes beyond confession and becomes a form of writing that can't be disputed. Remember that parchment and her quill pen; her songs are her new testaments. It's a power play, but for many fans, especially women, this ambition to be definitive feels like a necessary corrective to the misrepresentations or silence they face from ill-intentioned or cluelessly entitled men.

"A great writer can be a dangerous creature, however gentle and nice in person," the biographer Hermione Lee once wrote . Swift has occasionally taken this idea to heart before, especially on her once-scorned, now revered hip-hop experiment, Reputation . But now she's screaming from the hilltop, sparing no one, including herself as she tries to prop up one man's flagging interest and then falls for others' duplicity. "I know my pain is such an imposition," Swift sang in last year's " You're Losing Me ," a prequel to the explosive confessional mode of Tortured Poets , where that pain grows nearly suicidal, feeds romantic obsession, and drives her to become a "functional alcoholic" and a madwoman who finds strength in chaos in a way that recalls her friend Emma Stone's cathartic performance as Bella in Poor Things . (Bella, remember, comes into self-possession by learning to read and write.) " Who's afraid of little old me? " Swift wails in the album's window-smashing centerpiece bearing that title; in " But Daddy I Love Him ," she runs around screaming with her dress unbuttoned and threatens to burn down her whole world. These accounts of unhinged behavior reinforce the message that everybody had better be scared of this album — especially her exes, but also her business associates, the media and, yes, her fans, who are not spared in her dissection of just who's made her miserable over the past few years.

Listen to the album

I'm not getting into the dirty details; those who crave them can listen to Tortured Poets themselves and easily uncover them. They're laid out so clearly that anyone who's followed Swift's overly documented life will instantly comprehend who's who: the depressive on the heath, the tattooed golden retriever in her dressing room. Here's my reading of her album-as-novel — others' interpretations may vary: Swift's first-person protagonist (let's call her "Taylor") begins in a memory of a long-ago love affair that left her melancholy but on civil terms, then has an early meeting with a tempting rogue, who declares he's the Dylan Thomas to her Patti Smith; no, she says, though she's sorely tempted, we're "modern idiots," and she leaves him behind for a while. Then we get scenes from a stifling marriage to a despondent and distracted child-man. "So long, London," she declares, fleeing that dead end. From then on, it's the rogue on all cylinders. They connect, defy the daddy figures who think they're bad for each other, speak of rings and baby carriages. Those daddies continue to meddle in this newfound freedom.

In this main story arc, Swift writes about erotic desire as she never has before: She's "fresh out the slammer" (ouch, the rhetoric) and her bedsheets are on fire. She cannot stop rhapsodizing about this new love object and her commitment to their outlaw hunger for each other. It's " Love Story ," updated and supersized, with a proper Romeo at its center — a forbidden, tragic soulmate, a perfect match who's also a disastrous one. Swift peppers this section of Tortured Poets with name-drops ("Jack" we know, " Lucy " might be a tricky slap at Romeo, hard to tell) and instantly searchable references; he sends her a song by The Blue Nile and traces hearts on her face but tells revolting jokes in the bar and eventually reveals himself as a cad, a liar, a coward. She recovers, but not really. In the end, she does move on but still dreams of him hearing one of their songs on a jukebox and dolefully realizing the young girl he's now with has never heard it before.

Insert the names yourself. They do matter, because her backstories are key to Swift's appeal; they both keep her human-sized and amplify her fame. Swift's artistry is tied up in her deployment of celebrity, a slippery state in which a real life becomes emblematic. Like no one before, she's turned her spotlit day-to-day into a conceptual project commenting on women's freedom, artistic ambition and the place of the personal in the public sphere. As a celebrity, Swift partners with others: her model and musician friends, her actor/musician/athlete consorts, brands, even (warily) political causes. And with her fans, the co-creators of her stardom.

Her songs stand apart, though. They remain the main vehicle through which, negotiating unimaginable levels of renown, Swift continually insists on speaking only for herself. A listener has to work to find the "we" in her soliloquies. There are plenty of songs on Tortured Poets in which others will find their own experiences, from the sultry blue eroticism of " Down Bad " to the click of recognition in " I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) ." But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak for and to anyone besides herself is audible throughout the album. It's the sound of her freedom.

Taylor Swift: Tiny Desk Concert

She also confronts the way fame has cost her, fully exploring questions she raised on Reputation and in " Anti-Hero ." There are hints, more than hints, that her romance with the rogue was derailed partly because her business associates found it problematic, a danger to her precious reputation. And when she steps away from the man-woman predicament, Swift ponders the ephemeral reality of the success that has made private decisions nearly impossible. A lovely minuet co-written with Dessner, " Clara Bow " stages a time-lapsed conversation between Swift and the power players who've helped orchestrate her rise even as she knows they won't be concerned with her eventual obsolescence. "You look like Clara Bow ," they say, and later, "You look like Stevie Nicks in '75." Then, a turn: "You look like Taylor Swift," the suits (or is it the public, the audience?) declare. "You've got edge she never did." The song ends abruptly — lights out. This scene, redolent of All About Eve , reveals anxieties that all of Swift's love songs rarely touch upon.

One reason Swift went from being a normal-level pop star to sharing space with Beyoncé as the era's defining spirit is because she is so good at making the personal huge, without fussing over its translation into universals. In two decades of talking back to heartbreakers, Swift has called out gaslighting, belittling, neglect, false promises — all the hidden injuries that lovers inflict on each other, and that a sexist society often overlooks or forgives more easily from men. In "The Manuscript," which calls back to a romantic trauma outside the Tortured Poets frame, she sings of being a young woman with an older man making "coffee in a French press" and then "only eating kids cereal" and sleeping in her mother's bed when he dumps her; any informed Swift fan's mind will race to songs and headlines about cads she's previously called out in fan favorites like "Dear John" and "All Too Well" — the beginnings of the mission Tortured Poets fulfills.

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Swift's pop side (and perhaps her co-writers' influence) shows in the way she balances the claustrophobic referentiality of her writing with sparkly wordplay and well-crafted sentimental gestures. On Tortured Poets , she's less strategic than usual. She lets the details fall the way they would in a confession session among besties, not trying to change them from painful memories into points of connection. She's just sharing. Swift bares every crack in her broken heart as a way of challenging power structures, of arguing that emotional work that men can sidestep is still expected from women who seem to own the world.

Throughout Tortured Poets, Swift is trying to work out how emotional violence occurs: how men inflict it on women and women cultivate it within themselves. It's worth asking how useful such a brutal evisceration of one privileged private life can be in a larger social or political sense; critics, including NPR's Leah Donnella in an excellent 2018 essay on the limits of the songwriter's reach, have posed that question about Swift's work for years. But we should ask why Swift's work feels so powerful to so many — why she has become, in the eyes of millions, a standard-bearer and a freedom fighter. Unlike Beyoncé, who loves a good emblem and is always thinking about history and serving the culture and communities she claims, Swift is making an ongoing argument about smaller stories still making a difference. Her callouts can be viewed as petty, reflecting entitlement or even narcissism. But they're also part of her wrestling with the very notion of significance and challenging hierarchies that have proven to be so stubborn they can feel intractable. That Swift has reached such a peak of influence in the wake of the #MeToo movement isn't an accident; even as that chapter in feminism's history can seem to be closing, she insists on saying, "believe me." That isn't the same as saying "believe all women," but by laying claim to disputed storylines and fighting against silence, she at the very least reminds listeners that such actions matter.

Listening to Tortured Poets , I often thought of "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance," a song that Sinéad O'Connor recorded when she was in her young prime, not yet banished from the mainstream for her insistence on speaking politically. Like Swift's best work, its lyrics are very specific — allegedly about a former manager and lover — yet her directness and conviction expand their reach. In 1990, that a woman in her mid-20s would address a belittling man in this way felt startling and new. Taylor Swift came to prominence in a culture already changing to make room for such testimonies, if not — still — fully able to honor them. She has made it more possible for them to be heard. "I talk and you won't listen to me," O'Connor wailed . "I know your answer already." Swift doesn't have to worry about whether people will listen. But she knows that this could change. That's why she is writing it all down.

• Taylor Swift

By the Book

Emily Henry Is Proud to Be Called a Romance Writer

“I don’t want other people to miss out on the wisdom and joy this genre has to offer, the way I did for so long,” says the best-selling novelist. “Funny Story,” about a heartsore librarian and the new man in her life, is out next week.

Credit... Rebecca Clarke

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What books are on your night stand?

Currently, Elise Bryant’s “It’s Elementary,” Calahan Skogman’s “Blue Graffiti” and Yangsze Choo’s “The Fox Wife.”

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

It’s pouring rain. I’ve just turned in the final edits on a book. I’m wearing clean sweats and my hair is washed. I’m living in the house from “Ex Machina,” but without any A.I. I’m cry-laughing over a Mhairi McFarlane novel, or sobbing over a moving genre-bender like Emma Straub’s “This Time Tomorrow.” Or maybe Sherry Thomas publishes one more historical romance, just for this. Either way, I’m laughing, crying and by the end, calling someone I love to let them know what they mean to me.

Describe your ideal way to procrastinate from writing.

I don’t know if it’s ideal, but I know a lot about “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” if that answers your question.

What’s the last great book you read?

I absolutely loved Tia Williams’s “A Love Song for Ricki Wilde.”

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

I’ve never read “One Day,” by David Nicholls, and probably three times a year someone makes me promise that I’ll get to it eventually. I will! I’m just afraid for it to wreak emotional havoc on me.

Why is it important for you to identify as a romance writer?

When I was growing up (and beyond!), romance, as a genre, was treated as the butt of a joke. That message was instilled in me so deeply that I’d never even read a romance novel until I was about 25. When I started, I was blown away by how frequently the prose, character development and tension were exceptionally written. Beyond that, they’re often filled with a sense of hope, an appreciation for beauty, and the pervading belief that love of all kinds is a worthy pursuit, no matter how dark or scary the world may be.

While technically my books straddle the line between romance and general fiction, it’s always been important to me to claim that romance title, because if non-romance readers like my work, there’s a very strong chance that they’d love a lot of romance novels. I don’t want other people to miss out on the wisdom and joy this genre has to offer, the way I did for so long.

What makes a funny story?

A while back, two of my close friends realized, on their first night in a new house, that raccoons were living in the walls. They asked the landlord to send someone out to rehome the raccoons, and he said he’d get “[his] guy over there first.” His guy showed up with his pregnant wife, son, dog, a saw and a BB gun, and proceeded to cut a bunch of holes in the ceiling and walls. He fired BBs into them at random, to try to scare the raccoons out. Then he left. The raccoons were still there, and there were holes everywhere.

A lot of times, bad things happening, in surprising ways, is what makes a story funny.

Do you have a favorite library or librarian?

My favorite is named Sierra. Technically she’s a “client services specialist” or something, but she works in a library, and she’s also a silversmith, and she’s funny and wonderful and she loves her patrons, and she deserves a raise, if anyone from the Newport Library is wondering.

What’s the best seduction scene you’ve ever read?

I couldn’t choose a particular scene, but “The Luckiest Lady in London,” by Sherry Thomas, and “How to End a Love Story,” by Yulin Kuang, come to mind. Both exist in a state of sustained sexual tension that’s impressive to me as a writer.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?

Yeah, but that wasn’t the book’s fault. My parents used to catch me reading when I was supposed to be sleeping. Then I started reading with a flashlight in my bedroom closet and never got caught again. Or maybe they just gave up trying to make me sleep, I don’t know.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Realistically, I would just invite three of my closest writer friends, but since dead writers are on the table, I should take the opportunity to meet Nora Ephron, because she made me love romantic comedies. And Madeleine L’Engle, because she made me love reading. For my last invitation, I’d cheat and invite a writing duo, Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij , who are making some of the most surprising, bravest and softest television right now.

What do you plan to read next?

Aside from the three on my night stand, I’m excited to finally read Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem” before I watch the (two) new adaptations .

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