Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Book alert!

Today's Globe & Mail had an excerpt from an upcoming book called An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir by Elizabeth McCracken, about the stillbirth of her first child, a son, while she was living in France.

O Magazine also had an excerpt from this book in a recent issue.

I checked the book out on the Chapters-Indigo (Canadian mega-bookstore) website, & learned it hasn't been published yet (at least, it's not available in stores here yet). Needless to say, I will be keeping my eyes open for it!

"The dead don't need anything. The rest of us could use some company." Amen!!

Two other beautiful stillbirth memoirs I have read & loved:

* Life Touches Life by Lorraine Ash (a journalist who has remained childless/free after the loss of her daughter Victoria Helen).

* Shadow Child by Beth Powning, which details not only the stillbirth of her first son Tate in the early 1970s, but how it affected the rest of her life in the years afterward, and how she finally came to terms with her loss & was able to give her son a place in her life. This was one of the first first-person accounts of stillbirth that I read after the loss of my daughter -- my copy is actually signed by the author -- & it was a hugely affirming experience for me to read it.

5 comments:

  1. I read the excerpt and laughed and cried at the same time. I just ordered the book so I should get it any day this week. I can't wait to read it.

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  2. I am finding it very helpful to read the thoughts of other women who have experienced the childfree-not-by-choice life. It helps to know we're not alone. :)

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  3. So interesting. I get a lot out of the blogs of others who have suffered losses. But I feel cold chills at the thought of reading one of these books. Not sure why.

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  4. heh, I sorta feel the same as Niobe. And yet . . . .didja see Lost and Found the other day? Someone looking for people to respond to quotes from this book in her review? (or something like that?) So I signed up.

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