Memorial Days
Memorial Days ~ Geraldine Brooks
Fiction writer Geraldine Brooks was married to non-fiction writer Tony Horwitz for 35 years when, on Memorial Day in 2019, just before his 61st birthday, he suddenly collapsed on a sidewalk in Washington, DC and died in the middle of a tour for his most recent book. Memorial Days is her memoir of his death and the time following, and mostly alternates between the confusing and horrible days just after his death, and a trip she takes in 2023 to a tiny Australian island in order to grieve his loss in her own way, away from Western culture and its constructs. She is heartbroken, tired of pretending to be okay when she isn’t. She wants to cry when she feels like crying, to be melancholy when that suits her. She wants peace.
Memorial Days is beautifully written, such a sad, lovely book, full of memories of their life together, of their early life together as foreign correspondents, of their time as new parents of their two sons. She tells of the harsh realities of such a sudden loss. Of the coldness of the doctor who informed her of his death, of the bureaucracy that kept her from seeing his body for days, of her credit rating tanking because all of their credit was tied together and in his name, as was their health insurance. All of this, even though she is a successful, celebrated, Pulitzer Prize winning author.
I have loved every book of hers that I’ve read, and this one is no exception. Highly recommended.
12 Comments
Jenny
Wow, this sounds good… but sad.
J
It’s really sad, but she’s such a wonderful writer, it’s lovely.
Suzanne
Oh this sounds heavy. I so appreciate when people are able to write about grief, and I want very much to bear witness to that pain and the love that they’ve lost. Sometimes I need to guard my own heart, though, so I may not pick this one up.
J
Absolutely we all have to guard our own hearts. For me, reading about other people’s grief helps me with my own. It makes me feel validated somehow, in the pain that I carry with me, and that it’s OK that I’m not ‘over’ my losses.
Lisa's Yarns
This sounds great. I oddly like grief memoirs. Like is probably the wrong word – appreciate? I will check this one out!
J
Yeah, I really appreciate them a lot.
Margaret
I’ve heard great things about this book from others too. I don’t know if I could get through it although 12 years down the road from my husband’s loss, it would be easier to process.
J
Yeah Margaret, 12 years might be enough for processing regarding the loss of your husband, but so soon after the loss of your mom, I’m not sure.
PocoBrat
I appreciate your thumbs up. This is on my list, but I’m also apprehensive about starting it.
Books like _Wave_ and _The Year of Magical Thinking_ kill me for a while after I’ve read them…
J
Oh, I’ve not heard of Wave. I read The Year of Magical Thinking after my mom died. It helped me.
So I lost both of my parents too young, my mom was 66, my dad was 73 (one month short of 74). When my mom died, I found comfort in books. Books about grief, books to escape with, all kinds. When my dad died, I couldn’t read anything at all for months and months. I felt broken. Looking back, it’s kind of interesting to me that we can react so differently, and who knows why. Not me!
Tobia | craftaliciousme
It sounds sad and moving. Thank you for the recommendation.
J
It was both, very sad, very moving. I enjoyed it in the way one does when reading about melancholy.