Posted: Dec 4, 07 7:29pm
In grieving the loss of my mother, after the loss of my brother, after the loss of my father...I found that reading fiction and memoirs was more healing than any other source. Eventually I found I had built a collection of writers and their characters who became my “grief group.” I felt comforted hearing my story told by others—I find myself seeking more and more those books that include loss as a central theme. I cling to their ability to articulate the things I cannot express. For me, books heal and reveal.
JOHN IRVING
A Widow for One Year
My mother-in-law recommended this. I loved the way the writer-character's process worked out her emotions.
JOAN DIDION
The Year of Magical Thinking
Made me think of what grief had been like for my Mom and my sister-in-law as each lost their husband. I identified with trying to control the illness through information and the impulse to challenge the medical team.
MARGE PIERCY
Three Women
Dramatic differences among mother-daughter relationships, conflicting needs for closeness and independence, and the agony of trying to do the right thing for one's ailing mother bore shocking similarity to my own experience, My nurse practitioner recommended this.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
A Very Easy Death
The loss of her own mother in France, dealing with the illness and doctors and nursing homes--not that different in 1962 and 2004 or across continents. Nothing easy about it. Recommended to me by my cousin Wendy.
SUE MILLER
Story of My Father
Helped me understand differently my Dad's last three years, when Mom was left to care for the man who could no longer take care of her. The final pages told me why words and writing and reading are so vital to me.
The Distinguished Guest
Reminded me of my grandmother—a demanding person even in dying, and sometimes hard to like. Explores the family dynamic of estrangement, choices, love and grief.
GAIL GODWIN-always writes beautifully, deeply, richly:
The Good Husband
Father Melancholy's Daughter
Evenings at Five
JUDITH GUEST
Errands
My anger connected, as I remembered those who didn't acknowledge when Mom died, or those who only said “How old was she?” or “She's in a better place” There is no right thing to say...
JUDITH VIORST
Necessary Losses (I've loved her children's and adult books of fiction and humor; this was a surprise)
Upon the occasion of my friend's murder, the book had a poem I read at the memorial service.
MARY GORDON
Final Payments
Having cared for her father for nearly a dozen years, a woman has no idea what she wants for her own life after his death. She makes mistakes as she tries out love in mid-life. I was consoled about some of my own.
ALICE SEBOLD
The Lovely Bones
I devoured every page while trying to prepare for my younger brother's impending death from cancer. It gave me some strange kind of permission—that he needed us to accept and let him move on.
The Almost Moon
"When all is said and done killing my mother came easily"--WOW! How could I not read the book that opens with this line? It did not disappoint.
