Grief Is for People
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4.5 • 50 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, TIME, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Esquire, NPR, Elle, Library Journal, LitHub, Oprah Daily, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus, Bookpage, The Independent, and New Statesman
Disarmingly witty and poignant, Sloane Crosley’s memoir explores multiple kinds of loss following the death of her closest friend.
How do we live without the ones we love? After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Sloane Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.
For most of her adult life, Sloane and Russell worked together and played together as they navigated the corridors of office life, the literary world, and the dramatic cultural shifts in New York City. One day, Sloane’s apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery in its place.
When Russell dies exactly one month later, his death propels Sloane on a wild quest to right the unrightable, to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll of the pandemic.
Sloane Crosley’s search for truth is frank, wickedly funny, and gilded with resounding empathy. Upending the “grief memoir,” Grief Is for People is a story of the struggle to hold on to the past without being consumed by it. A contemporary elegy, it rises to console and challenge our notions of mourning during these grief-stricken times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this aching meditation on loss and friendship, essayist and novelist Crosley (Cult Classic) eulogizes her late literary mentor and best friend against the backdrop of the high-pressure publishing industry. At 25, Crosley applied for a job opening at Vintage Books. Russell Perreault, the then-37-year-old head of the paperback imprint's publicity department, was charmed and offered her the job. When Crosley, who was hesitant to leave her current position at "a more commercial publishing house," asked for a second interview, Russell shot back, "It's like you've been admitted to Harvard but first you need a tour of the bathrooms." From there, the two became fast friends as they faced down crises both minor and major, including the exposure of James Frey's lies in his fictionalized 2003 memoir, A Million Little Pieces. By the 2010s, however, Russell's light began to dim—Crosley stopped receiving invitations to his country house after his romantic life imploded, and changing workplace norms silenced his signature banter. On June 27, 2019, Crosley's apartment was burglarized; exactly one month later, Russell died by suicide. Crosley elegantly links the two losses by explaining how her fevered desire to reclaim her burglarized items stood in for her inability to reclaim Russell. Her characteristically whip-smart prose takes on a newly introspective quality as she reinvigorates dusty publishing memoir tropes and captures the minutiae of a complicated friendship with humor and heart. This is a must-read.
Customer Reviews
Beautifully written.
Broke my heart
Sigh
Incredibly moving, compelling and insightful. Read this book.