Dead Dads Club (with Maddie Norris)

2025-07-29

Most people who experience the death of a parent come to understand that grief isn’t something you get over—it's something you try to learn how to live with. That's what author Maddie Norris discovered after losing her dad at seventeen. Instead of looking away from the pain, she studied it—through the lens of her father's own work as a medical researcher on the science of wounds. Maddie joins us to talk about her debut book The Wet Wound: An Elegy In Essays, weavin...

Most people who experience the death of a parent come to understand that grief isn’t something you get over—it's something you try to learn how to live with.

That's what author Maddie Norris discovered after losing her dad at seventeen. Instead of looking away from the pain, she studied it—through the lens of her father's own work as a medical researcher on the science of wounds.

Maddie joins us to talk about her debut book The Wet Wound: An Elegy In Essays, weaving together the history of wound care and the rituals of mourning. Maddie challenges the idea that healing means letting go. She asks: what if grief is more like tending an open wound—something tender, and ongoing, and sometimes even joyful?

Complete transcript available at relationscapes.org.

ABOUT THE GUEST

MADDIE NORRIS is author of The Wet Wound: An Elegy in Essays. She is a visiting assistant professor at the Davidson College in North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her award-winning work has been named as notable in Best American Essays.

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