In the months following 9/11, while images of the collapsing towers haunted the media, Kenneth Sherman began a course of reading, seeking out authors who believed that literature could address the most extreme circumstances. Sherman contemplates Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, writing under crushing depression; Anne Frank, retaining sanity by diary writing; authors who, though critically ill, persisted in their quest for the right word. The ‘furies’ in Sherman’s title belong to history and what they bring is not only destruction, but the opportunity to transform ourselves.