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WINNER — 2017 RED HEN PRESS NONFICTION AWARD
SHORTLISTED —2018 AMERICAN BEST BOOK, AUTOBIOGRAPHY
SHORTLISTED — 2019 RUBERY INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARD, NONFICTION
Inspired by a brother’s high school science project—a perpetual motion machine that could save the world— The Perpetual Motion Machine is a memoir in essays that attempts to save a sibling by depicting the visceral pain that accompanies longing for some past impossibility. The collection has been a science project in its study of memory, in the calculation and plotting of the moments that make up a childhood. The preparation has been “in the field” in that it is built upon the gathering of lived experience; the evidence is photo albums, family interviews, and anecdotes from friends. The project has been one giant experiment—to see if they can all make it out alive.
"One of the most important types of love — the love between siblings — has perhaps also been the least-carefully explored in contemporary literature. Count Brittany Ackerman's instantly engaging and wildly engrossing memoir, The Perpetual Motion Machine, as a headfirst dive in the right direction. Her prose is accessible and affecting, and her family story is exquisite in its luminous detail and intimacy, full of heartbreak and humor — as simple as an abacus, as expansive as the starry night sky. I loved this book!" —Davy Rothbart, author of My Heart is an Idiot and creator of FOUND Magazine, and contributor to This American Life