All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf, by Katharine Smyth. Crown, 2019Katharine Smyth idolized her father. He was her hero and the person with who she had long talks, both growing up and as an adult. She also idealized her parent’s marriage. But her father, and the marriage, had a rather large dark side. He was an alcoholic ( Read more... )

In the Night Wood, by Dale Bailey. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018
This story is almost over the top gothic. It begins with a husband and wife, Charles and Erin Hayden, inheriting a fortune and a huge manor house in England, one surrounded with primeval forest. They are a miserable pair; he had an affair with a co-worker, their daughter died as a ( Read more... )

The Handbook for Companioning the Mourner: Eleven Essential Principles, by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Companion Press, 2009
This tiny book contains few words but lots of ideas- well, eleven of them to be exact. It’s an outline of how best to be with a person who is morning, as a companion who lets the person grieve rather than trying to cheer them up ( Read more... )

Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, by Hope Edelman. Delta, 1994I started reading this book nearly ten years ago, when the grief counselor recommended it to me after my mother died. I read most of it then, and put it down with only a few pages to go, until an hour ago ( Read more... )