Heather Christle

I found Heather Christle's book both compelling and exhausting. She is a poet, so I expected this to be a book of poetry. It is. But, it's also much more: memoir, biology, psychology ...

Most of its two hundred pages include two or three entries, entries that may be related to her personal experiences, to a literary essay, to some scientific literature, to her comments on one of the above, or to something else. Some passages stand by themselves, others are connected to similar passages nearby show more or to ones scattered throughout the text.

This format slowed me down and drew me in. I didn't read each entry, but each part I did read gave me pause, made me think, made me feel. For me this is not a sad book. I expect I'd have a different take on The Crying Book if my life was not going well at the moment.

This is strong stuff, thoughtful and emotional. It was just too much to take it all in, too much for one first reading. This, for me, is a book to set aside for now, let it rest, revisit it slowly at some time in the future, learn what it is about. show less

I'd put off reading this book since it came out because I knew it would gut me in a similar way Christle's poetry does: sweetly, earnestly, brilliantly. And it did. This has been the most difficult month in my most difficult year. Both of my grandmas passed away within three weeks of each other and there is additional deep, ongoing family trauma. It is no exaggeration to say I am crying more often than not. This book has been a balm, a salve, a weighted blanket. I most likely won't stop show more crying anytime soon, but this book makes me feel seen, held. show less

A bold memoir by Heather Christle, about her life as an American poet, who's mother was born in England and taught her daughters English manners. They visit their London relatives over the years, and Christle travels there on her own while working on a book about Virginia Woolf. Woolf is a favorite author of mine, and I admired Christle's earlier, The Crying Book, so I was drawn to read this one.

There is much about where Woolf lived and worked and wrote, also much about Christle's mother's show more life before she married and moved to America. We also learn both mother and daughter each have a story of sexual assault, mother when very young, daughter when fourteen, both in parts of London where they should have been safe. Parts of the book are about how they reveal what happened, to each other, and how they dealt and still deal with the memories.

Christle tells all these things, and much more, interspersing past and present and England and America and history and literature, and her personal thoughts and actions. She does this complex telling in ways that I could follow easily with only an occasional thumbing back to check a name or place. It is a satisfying book, one I'm happy to have read. show less

A long, complexly braided essay (but a short book) about tears, crying, grief, despair, depression. Which sounds grim but is actually really interesting—it's a subject much on my mind lately, anyway. It's strong on poetry with a little science and history, in good proportions, and the footnotes alone are worth the price of admission because they reference so much good material. A thoughtful book, and far less sad than it sounds.