A Warm Breath (Unabridged‪)‬

In this gripping and wide-ranging essay, Nadelson deals with his grief after the premature death of a close friend, coupled with the joy accompanying the birth of his first child. Everything he now does - from caring for his daughter to wandering the streets of his run-down neighborhood in Oregon - starts to feel like a betrayal. Nadelson looks over his life, thinking about his run-in with a Soho cab driver, a college Halloween party spent with his dead friend, and his favorite Chekhov story, "Grief". Over the course of the essay, Nadelson tries to understand why he is falling apart and what he can do to put himself back together.

Ploughshares, the literary magazine of Emerson College.