Memorial Days: A Memoir
Contributor(s): Brooks, Geraldine (Author)
Publisher: Viking     (View Publisher's Titles)
ISBN: 059365398X
Physical Info: 0.88" H x 8.53" L x 5.86" W (0.69 lbs) 224 pages
 
Geraldine Brooks is the author of six novels, including Horse, People of the Book, Year of Wonders, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning March. She has also written acclaimed works of nonfiction, including Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. Born and raised in Australia, Brooks now divides her time between Sydney and Martha's Vineyard.
"Brooks and her husband, Tony Horwitz, had been reporters in war zones, but nothing prepared her for his sudden death, at just 60, after three decades together. Four years later, she journeyed to a remote island near Tasmania "to do the unfinished work of grieving." This memoir is her report back, at once a spare accounting of tragic detail and an appreciation of the healing properties of solitude." --New York Times Book Review
"This intimate memoir of grief is a lifeline to others dealing with loss. ... Intensely intimate and candid ... Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. ... Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it's moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief." --Los Angeles Times
"Brooks wield[s] precise and often beautiful language and, in the most graceful way possible, point[s] a way forward. A rich account of marriage and mourning ... Memorial Days contains much compassionate advice for those who have, or will, suffer the same ferocious blow." --Washington Post
" Memorial Days joins Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart as memoirs of grief worth seeking out. ... Memorial Days gives due justice to what it means to live and love and experience loss." --Chicago Tribune
"The grace Brooks offered herself with this time alone is offered to the reader all through the book; Memorial Days will surely join the other classics delivered to new widows by their literary friends." --Boston Globe
"A powerful, slender book packed with quotable observations ... Memorial Days masterfully reveals Brooks as both reporter and fiction writer, marshaling facts and details while probing the ever-motivating miracles of love and loss." --Star Tribune
"There is no single set of instructions on how to cope with grief. But a gifted writer, sharing her own story, can offer a path out of darkness toward reflection and peace." --Christian Science Monitor
"With exquisite writing, the book is a gorgeous love letter to her husband, Tony Horwitz. ... We marvel at Brooks' skill in crafting powerful prose with a visceral impact. ... Brooks gives us an enormous gift, generously sharing her intensely personal journey, which will touch many souls." --Martha's Vineyard Times
"This poignant book on grief ultimately teaches gladness. ... A spectacular ode to grieving and an elegant homage to marriage. ... A masterpiece." --Washington Independent Review of Books
"Brooks, with arresting precision, sensitivity, and candor, takes deep soundings of her grief and evolving perceptions and feelings in a generous and resonant remembrance. ... Brooks' many fans will want to learn more about her, while ardent memoir readers and those looking for books about grief will also reach for Memorial Days." --Booklist (starred review)
"[M]oving and lyrical ... readers reckoning with the loss of a loved one will find wisdom in these pages." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A graceful and moving meditation on bereavement." --Kirkus Reviews
"Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. ... Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it's moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief." --Los Angeles Times
"A rich account of marriage and mourning." --Washington Post
A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz - just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy - collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.
After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.
Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death.
A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.