Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This book, about coping with death - unusual, terrible, unexpected and accidental death - is a gift. It entailed the author plunging straight into the most painful experience she might have ever had, remembering it, clarifying it in her own mind, and describing it. The writing was cathartic, perhaps, for the writer, but also fraught with the repercussions of ripping up some solidified scabs. But it's the reader who really makes out as Beth recounts in lovely, haunting detail, the emotional aftermath of the simultaneous deaths of her best friend and brother.
A lot of good things have been said about this book, and they are true, and I'm not going to repeat them. However, I did want to add why the book is so fundamentally different and refreshing when compared with other material you might read: These days, most writers try to fit the tales they tell into a particular pop culture narrative or a theme in order to sell them. There's usually a moral, a pat ending, or something like that.
Beth Greenfield thankfully does nothing of this sort. It's clear she isn't that sort of person. When faced with the circumstances described in this book, she doesn't know the answers and isn't afraid to be unsure. Her humility also affects her writing: She tells what happened with a gentle touch, without making the details stick to a popular narrative, i.e. she tells it like it was, rather than packaging it.
The result? The invitation one gets to peek into lives distorted by the accident described here, provides insights in all kinds of unexpected ways. You get to see not just how a family copes with a certain loss at a certain time, but how a suburban family finds meaning generally in this day and age - what are the things one does in order to live a meaningful life? The answer is in the pages of this book, in Greenfield's words and in amazing, evocative details that will stay with the reader. A story told this way - beautifully, softly - brings lots of rewards that arrive long after the last page has been turned.
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Ten Minutes from Home: A Memoir
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