Unveiling Power and Memory: Sangamithra Iyer’s ‘Governing Bodies’ Secrets Revealed
Reviewed by Amy Roost
If I were to use one word to describe Governing Bodies: A Memoir, a Confluence, a Watershed (Milkweed Editions, November 2025), it would be tender. Tender as the eyes that witness suffering. Tender as the body that must bear the burden of suffering. Tender as the soul that attempts to alchemize what the eyes see and body know into a kindness we can live by.
Sangamithra Iyer’s memoir takes the reader on a meandering journey of self-discovery, not unlike a river’s journey—a body of water that is used as a metaphor again and again throughout the book. (Even the table of contents is laid out like a meandering river.) While reading, there is a palpable sense of flowing like water through and around the contours of Iyer’s family history. Water that seeks its own level much as Iyer seeks her own purpose in life.
