LIFESTYLE

'Call it in the Air': UGA professor's latest book deals with grief through a poetic lens

Andrew Shearer
Athens Banner-Herald
Author, educator and Athens resident Ed Pavlić is pictured in this undated promotional image. Pavlić is a professor of English, African American studies, and creative writing at the University of Georgia.

Ed Pavlić's elder sister, Kate, passed away in 2005. In the process of sifting through her personal effects, Pavlić found a postcard-sized self-portrait painted by Kate in vibrant hues of red, yellow, green and blue. On the reverse side was another self-portrait, a literal flipside done in a monochromatic style of dark purple and muted white.

The paintings eventually became the respectful front and back covers for Pavlić's elegy for Kate, "Call it in the Air," which will have its release celebrated with a virtual book launch hosted by Avid Bookshop on Oct. 11. A conversation between Pavlić and fellow author Kiese Laymon via Zoom video conference takes place 7-8 p.m.

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"Call it in the Air" is the 13th book by Athens resident Pavlić, who works as a professor of English, African American studies, and creative writing at the University of Georgia. Pavlić told the Banner-Herald that the text came from 25-30 pages that he wrote immediately after Kate's passing, but would likely not have been accepted by a publisher at the time.

"(The first draft) was all written straight out with no breaks, and gave it to a couple people I knew to read over the following weeks," recalled Pavlić. "They told me they felt like they could barely breathe while reading it. It's the kind of book an author can only get published after they've got a track record behind it."

Equal parts poetry, journal and memoir, "Call it in the Air" moves back and forth between Pavlić's stream-of-consciousness accounts of his past adventures and experiences with Kate and raw, visceral first-person narratives from being beside Kate in the intensive care unit of the hospital near the end of her life. The two literary styles are divided by purposeful, and somewhat merciful, page breaks.

The cover art of Athens-based author Ed Pavlić's "Call it in the Air" is a painting by Pavlić's sister, Kate, the subject of the book. "Call it in the Air" was released on Oct. 11, 2022 by Milkweed Editions.

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Pavlić kept that initial draft of "Call it in the Air" in a drawer as his career as an author and educator progressed, and continued to work on it intermittently as time went on. The title comes from the text of the book's haunting final passage, in which Pavlić's narrator meditates on the juxtaposition of healing while a loved one lies dying.

Pavlić said that he is confident that Kate would have loved the book and that he hopes others will, too.

"If I was a bricklayer like my dad, I'd have built a shed or something, but I'm a writer and this is what I do," said Pavlić. "I felt like I owed it to (Kate) to try to get something across of the reality of her life which I hope, now 17 years later, can provoke people to ask themselves some things about the reality of their lives."

To register for the Zoom conversation, visit avidbookshop.com/event/virtual-book-launch-ed-pavlics-call-it-air-kiese-laymon.