The Grief of Others The Grief of Others

The Grief of Others

    • 3.7 • 135 Ratings
    • $5.99
    • $5.99

Publisher Description

The subtly powerful novel adapted into the 2015 feature film, The Grief of Others asks: is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family?
From the acclaimed author of No Book but the World and 2019's searing new novel Strangers and Cousins.

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.

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2011
September 15
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
384
Pages
PUBLISHER
Penguin Publishing Group
SELLER
PENGUIN GROUP USA, INC.
SIZE
865.7
KB

Customer Reviews

sueellen1 ,

Well written, insightful, a good read

Great tale of the emotions after losing a family member, as well as the cross currents of family life.

*W*~*A* ,

Blah

Blah, blah, blah.

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