The grief of others : a novel

Resource Information

The work The grief of others : a novel represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in St. Catharines Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Audio, Nonmusical, Sounds, Music.

Label

The grief of others : a novel

Title remainder

a novel

Statement of responsibility

Leah Hager Cohen

Creator

• Cohen, Leah Hager

Contributor

• Ward, Pam
• hoopla digital

Narrator

• Ward, Pam

Subject

• Children -- Death -- Fiction
• Marriage -- Fiction
• Grief -- Fiction

Genre

• Fiction

Language

eng

Summary

Is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family?The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. Struggling to regain a semblance of normalcy for themselves and for their two older children, they find themselves pretending not only that little has changed, but that their marriage, their family, have always been intact. Yet in the aftermath of the baby's death, long-suppressed uncertainties about their relationship come roiling to the surface. A dreadful secret emerges with reverberations that reach far into their past and threaten their future.The couple's children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely-perhaps courageously-idiosyncratic ways. But as the four family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they all find themselves growing more alert to the sadness and burdens of others-to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.Moving, psychologically acute, and gorgeously written, The Grief of Others asks how we balance personal autonomy with the intimacy of relationships, how we balance private decisions with the obligations of belonging to a family, and how we take measure of our own sorrows in a world rife with suffering. This novel shows how one family, by finally allowing itself to experience the shared quality of grief, is able to rekindle tenderness and hope

Accompanying matter

technical information on music

Cataloging source

Midwest

Form of composition

not applicable

Format of music

not applicable

Literary text for sound recordings

fiction

PerformerNote

Read by Pam Ward

Target audience

adult

Transposition and arrangement

not applicable