An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

The acclaimed novelist details her life before and after losing her first child in the ninth month of pregnancy in this touching and humorous memoir.

One of the Best Books of the Year: USA Today, NPR's Fresh Air, San Francisco Chronicle, Publishers Weekly, San Diego Tribune, Arizona Republic, Hartford Courant

"Like Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, this book is a powerful and defiant memoir of grief." —Arizona Republic

In this flush of unexpected love, newly married, the prizewinning novelist Elizabeth McCracken finds herself in a remote part of France, waiting for the birth of her first child.

This book is about what happens next. In the ninth month of her pregnancy, a baby is lost. Just over a year later, a baby is born. In a profoundly moving display of humor, wisdom, and unfailing generosity, McCracken tenderly presents her story.

It is a story of true love and unfathomable sadness. It is a story of courageous recovery and bittersweet moments. It is a story about the importance of friendship. It is a story about happiness, and about hope. Elizabeth McCracken opens her heart, and leaves all of ours richer for it.

"Gorgeously loving. . . . McCracken's story of loss reads like a celebration of life." —Entertainment Weekly

"This is an intimate book. . . . It is also a wildly important book." —Los Angeles Times

"Reading it is a mysteriously enlarging experience."―Time

"By the end of this memoir you will have held a beautiful child in your hands and you will have acknowledged him. This book is an extraordinary gift to us all."―Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon