Tag Archives: death
** A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates
I’m a fan of Joyce Carol Oates’s novels and I was somewhat disappointed in her memoir, A Widow’s Story, which recalls her first year of widowhood after her beloved husband died. The first third is brilliant and harsh, as she … Continue reading
Filed under True story
Nothing was the Same by Kay Jamison
Nothing Was the Same is the memoir of a very happy marriage through the cancer diagnosis and, ultimately, death of the husband as told by his wife, who wrote an earlier and very interesting memoir of what it’s like to … Continue reading
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The Other Side of Sadness by George Bonanno
If you have ever felt that your grief did not quite follow what the books say you “should” feel after a loss, The Other Side of Sadness is for you. It seems that the standard denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and … Continue reading
Filed under Non fiction
Swimming in a Sea of Death by David Rieff
Swimming in a Sea of Death is the account of Susan Sontag’s final months from her diagnosis with leukemia, told from the point of view of his son. It starts with a clueless physician who delivers the diagnosis without, or … Continue reading
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Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg
Home Safe is the story of a sixty-year old writer who loses her husband and her writing inspiration and focuses instead on making her daughter’s life miserable. She starts with innocuous annoyances, like buying her clothes she can’t wear, but … Continue reading
Filed under New fiction
Epilogue by Anne Roiphe
While reading Epilogue I found it hard not to think of The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion since are memoirs of grief-stricken New York intellectual widows. Didion’s book focuses on grief (to me the most vivid description was … Continue reading
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Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond by Jane Brody
So eery that I decided to read this particular book last week… Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond is a sobering and practical guide to how to prepare for our final months and weeks on earth and make things easier … Continue reading
Filed under Non fiction
Goldengrove by Francine Prose
Goldengrove‘ s heroin, at 13, deals with her older sister’s accidental death by dressing like her and going out with her boyfriend. The parents seem overwhelmed and don’t see what’s going on under their noses (not that they really paid … Continue reading
Filed under New fiction
Nothing to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes is afraid of death. And aging. And he did not get along with his mother — at all. He has read an impressive array of philosophers and philosophers sans le savoir, and he is able to quote and … Continue reading
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An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination is a memoir about having a stillborn baby, and it improbably opens with a hilarious misunderstanding, in a French hospital since the parents lived there at the time, of why one may … Continue reading
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