The Grief of Others

Grief is quiet and consuming and solitary but it eats away at happiness and connection like an acid. In Leah Hager Cohen's exqusite new novel, grief is smothering the tiny flicker of life left in the Ryrie family. John and Ricky's marriage is failing as they mourn the loss of their infant son a year previously. Not only can they not find their way back to each other, but they cannot find their way to helping their older children, 13 year old Paul, a target of bullying, and 9 year old Elizabeth, called Biscuit, who is skipping school regularly and obsessed with cultural death rituals. The loss of Simon, born with anancephaly and only living 57 hours past his birth, magnifies the existing cracks in the Ryrie family. And the collective show more silence about his existence and death serves to split the cracks wide open. Into this struggling house comes Jess, John's oldest daughter and the product of a prior relationship. She is in her early twenties, single, and pregnant. Her presence complicates evyerthing and highlights the happier time years before when, as a young teenager, she vacationed with the Ryries.

The narrative follows each of the six main characters, getting into their heads and showing the different ways in which their grief and longing cripples them. Each of the characters, the four Ryries, Jess, and Gordie, a young man reeling from his own father's death and introduced to the Ryries through Biscuit, is complete and realistic. While some of the decisions made by the characters, John and Ricky in particular, are hard to understand, the truth and burden of their individual mourning make the decisions real and wrenching, especially when seen in the context of the family and in the impact on each of the other, equally needy, characters. The narrative timeline moves back and forth from the present, capturing the months before Simon's birth and immediately following as well as eight years prior when Jess last spent time with the Ryries. This allows the reader to see into the heart of the familial relationships to their very core, even before grief so overwhelmed them.

Cohen's writing is simply gorgeous, filled with amazing descriptions that take your breath away. She has effectively isolated her characters from each other even when they need each other the most and it is impossible to feel anything but deepest sorrow at their very alone-ness. That each of them is profoundly lonely and incapable of re-establishing long frayed bonds is overwhelming and adds to the pervasive sadness of the story above and beyond the loss of a baby. The characters' very secrets hold them at arms length from each other, husband from wife, parents from children, Ryries from family outsiders, and the revelation of their deepest beliefs will change their lives forever. While it is hard to comprehend the remoteness of the characters, Cohen has done a marvelous job drawing these broken people who have lost the ability to trust and to nurture and to make a family. Absorbing and effecting, this was a moving novel about loss and secrets and family and trust and the struggle to emerge from grief not unchanged but whole. show less

The Grief of Others is about the Ryrie family: husband and father John, wife and mother Ricky (Erica), son and brother Paul, daughter and sister Biscuit (Elizabeth). In their own separate ways, the Ryries are grieving for the baby lost a year ago: Simon Isaac, born with a condition "incompatible with life," lived only 57 hours.

Into this grief-fractured family enter Jess - John's daughter with another woman, before he met Ricky - and Gordie, whose Newfoundland Ebie knocks Biscuit into the Hudson River in a flawed rescue attempt. Gordie, too, is grieving, for the death of his father, Will. He forms a bond with Jess, who is several weeks pregnant. Other than Gordie and Jess' growing friendship, there is little communication between family show more members: each inhabits their own private world, incomprehensible to the others. Eventually, however, these barriers break down.

Most of the story takes place in the present ("This Year"), though the prologue takes place "Last Year" and some of the story occurs "Eight Years Ago." This transitioning in time is not jarring, however. In fact, Cohen's writing is gorgeous and true, quietly spectacular. The Grief of Others has much in common with Mark Haddon's The Red House and Joshua Henkin's The World Without You, but I think this is the best of the three.

Quotes:

Was it possible to reach someone whose sorrow you didn't acknowledge, let alone understand? (117)

But when was it love's business to be rational? (127)

...she'd begged his forgiveness, not seeming to understand that this was a matter beyond his control. It made as much sense as begging for someone to love you. As though it were something you could choose. (145)

Also this: how many are dying right now, at this moment, the whole world over? For just a moment his mind is able to grasp it, the existence of a vast, invisible, yet utterly real community of the dying, and then, it follows, another composed of the suffering, and one of the ecstatic and one of the healing, and one of those in despair and one of those in wonder. Somewhere on this earth, too, there are others like him, others paused at this very moment in contemplation by an open doorway. For just a moment he is able to grasp the perfect truth of this. Then it is gone.
And he perceives that it will always be this complicated, that life will always contain such quicksilver changes, that it is composed of quicksilver changes, those mercurial shifts between understanding and loss of understanding, longing and gratitude, imprecation and blessing. He stands close to the night, listening for a splash, and thinks he has never felt so unafflicted in all his life, so wholly unmarked by fear. (288-289)

Gordie held his arms apart as though someone had asked him roughly how big a Chihuahua was, a gesture Jess somehow understood was meant to initiate a hug. (357)

They could not see her, a speck on the bench on the opposite shore, but she was here, nevertheless; and she, too, was traveling, in slower fashion, following a kind of coastline, too, as faithfully and inexorably as they. It would lead somewhere else. Someday she would be someone else....As distant to her present self as were the strangers on that train. That truth, too, was lonely and terrible. (361) show less

The Grief of Others tells the story of the John and Ricky Rylie, struggling to save their marriage after the loss of their infant son who lived only for 56 hours. They had to deal not only with their loss, but previous losses and a secret Ricky kept from John. The children, Paul and Biscuit, also were dealing with their own grief while not having their parents fully there for them. An adult daughter of John's, Jessie, joins the family, and this helps the family to work through their problems.

I loved this book even though it was dark. I lost my three-year old brother when I was a teenager, and I know how isolating and lonely grief can be. I have a happy and loving family, but during that time I lost a part of my parents while they worked show more through their grief of losing my brother. The author captured those feelings show less

The Grief of Others explores the breakdown of communication that typically results during periods of loss, no matter what the cause of the loss. Everyone handles loss differently, and through the eyes of six different characters, Ms. Cohen showcases the various ways others are affected by a typically internalized feeling. Often heartbreaking, The Grief of Others comes across as a warning shot to others who may be experiencing similar emotional upheaval.

Unfortunately, what starts out as poignant individualized stories of coping ends up devolving into a bewildering cacophony of chaos as the characters begin to come together and share their burdens with each other. This results with the introduction of two characters outside the Ryrie show more household through which the Ryries are forced to come to grips with their own mourning. Without the additional characters, the story would have remained concise and powerful. With the two characters, however, there are two more distractions from the overall story that detract from the Ryries’ experiences.

Ms. Cohen does a tremendous job capturing the subtleties of various reactions, especially the reactions of the children. From Biscuit’s fascination with funereal rights, Paul’s self-imposed isolation from all but one of his peers, Ricky’s withdrawal from her family, and John’s bewilderment, all four struggle with the long-lasting results of not seeking closure and discussing their feelings with each other at the time of the incident. Readers with children of similar ages to Biscuit and Paul will agonize over their withdrawals and mute forms of rebellion.

Unfortunately, Ricky’s and John’s struggles are not as powerful, as Ricky and John are not as sympathetic. Ricky’s motivations behind her decision to withhold key information from her husband are never fully explained in a satisfactory manner. John’s reactions to her “betrayal” appear overly dramatic for the situation. Furthermore, whereas Ms. Cohen satisfactorily concludes Biscuit and Paul’s futures, Ricky and John’s futures remain deliberately open to interpretation by the reader. It is frustrating and a trivialization to the seriousness of infidelity and trust on a marriage.

The Grief of Others is a book of two parts. When the story revolves around Paul’s and Biscuit’s issues, it is a poignant story that tugs on the heartstrings, as these two lost children try to grope their way around a larger world in which they have been left to flounder by their grieving parents. When the story revolves around Ricky and John, it is a maudlin, overly simplistic sermon on the dangers of keeping secrets and the importance of trust in a marriage. The two stories eventually come together by the end of the novel to create a confusing narrative in which a reader is not certain just what to take away from it in the end. That Ms. Cohen is trying to present her readers with a specific lesson is very clear; just what that lesson is remains unclear. It is the unfortunate dichotomy of story lines that creates a majority of the muddiness, which is unfortunate when one considers just how powerful the story could have been with the right focus.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to TLC Book Tours and Riverhead Books for my advanced reading copy! show less

When I picked up “The Grief of Others”, I had finished another book and just needed another 10 minutes or so of reading to put me to sleep. This was in my “To Be Reviewed” pile and I was sure that I’d read a page or two and then choose something else a bit more mindless for that last bit of reading time.

Instead, I was immediately drawn to the fragile, brittle beauty of this story, of author Leah Hager Cohen’s words. The premise of the book immediately inspires sadness…as a mother I cannot even fathom the thought of losing a child, and yet there is something about this book that grabbed onto me and wouldn’t let me go.

“He was out of the womb and alive in the world for fifty-seven hours – a tally that put him in rare show more statistical company and caused in his mother an absurd sense of pride – during which time she kissed his ears and insteps and toes and palms and knuckles and lips repeatedly, a lifetime of kisses.”

That paragraph is absolutely heartbreaking – but it feels so real that I was just in awe. As much as I never want to imagine the pain and grief of a mother holding her child that she knows does not have long to live, the way the author creates the images seem absolutely…right.

This is the story of a mother, and a father…and brother and sister…a family who must move on after tragedy but is unsure exactly what that “after” looks like.

There are many heartrending parts to this book. The scene where Ricky (the baby’s mother) learns of her child’s birth defect…”The radiologist there in the obstetric ultrasound suite explained that the condition was ‘incompatible with life’, a phrase that took Ricky several seconds to understand, but which then struck her not as sneakily euphemistic but as surprisingly elegant and apt, free of judgment.” This is a woman, who with her third child, heads to what should be a routine ultrasound thinking she will be coming home with a picture to hang on the fridge and admire, thinking this will be the first special picture of the newest member of their family (“The moment, that moment, of seeing the little profile!”)…and who is instead dealt a devastating blow.

The grief and hurt and repressed feelings pile up in the members of the family…with few outlets as they try to pretend everything is all right after the death of the baby. Only Ricky was able to hold him, in fact, she was unable to let go. “…once he’d left her arms the force of her grief gouged her. She’d had no inkling it would be like this: not simply lonely-making, but corrosive. She was filled with hatred. Some of it for herself.”

Something about that word, corrosive, stayed with me. Intense feelings can consume us – eat away at our soul. This woman, this family has a struggle to try and avoid that future, try and repair that which is eating away at them.

But along with their grief – there is beauty. There is love, and the memories of the joy and happiness that they once shared – the picture perfect moments that they need to hold on to through the darkest of times.

“…Ricky realizes that there have been a few stellar days, or parts of days: moments that seemed instantly to become emblazoned in her mind as postcards she will look back on. Scavenging for late season blueberries, and Biscuit turning out to be the best seeker of them all. Playing cards all day, the day it rained without stopping, and eating popcorn straight from the metal pot. Hiking on the blazed trails and logging roads that suddenly opened up and as suddenly stopped, like ghost boulevards in the old forest; the sun filtering down as if in slow motion through the crown cover, the light somehow altered, distilled, as though it had been sent from a long time ago.”

The book was about people so fragile, so carefully patched together after disaster that it seemed as if too strong a breath might scatter the pieces. It is about people trying as best they can to hold on to the life they knew in the face of a tragedy they never expected. It is a lovely, sad, beautiful and emotional story of people. Of the frailty of human beings and the incredible strength of human love. show less

Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2012/05/grief-of-others.html

The Grief of Others begins with a devastating event - the death of an infant only a few hours old. The baby dies in the arms of its mother. The death is not a surprise. Based on prenatal testing, the mother knew the child would not live. Yet, the devastation of the loss is no less for having known it was coming. The rest of the story then tells of the family as they come to grips with this loss and the secrets that emerge in the process.

The story weaves back and forth across time - from immediately following the death to a year or so later. The story also weaves back and forth between the family members - John (the father), Ricky (the show more mother), and the siblings Biscuit and Paul. In addition, we hear the stories of Jess, John's daughter from an earlier relationship, and the Gordie, a young man who is reeling from his own losses and gets involved with this family.

The first few pages of this book literally take your breath away. They paint a heart wrenching picture of a mother who holds her infant from his birth through the fifty some hours of his life until his death. The intensity of the emotions conveyed stays with me well after I have put the book down.

Unfortunately, I don't think there was any way possible for the rest of the book to live up to that opening. I found the rest of the book rather difficult to read. The writing style focused a lot on description. It sort of makes sense because grieving can be such a solitary process and very much an internal process. With each chapter focused on a different character, the book isolated that character's experience. However, it just made for difficult reading. It created a somewhat detached or removed feeling to the book which did not match the intensity of the opening.

For the opening few pages though, I will always remember this book. show less

The problem with having a near-brilliant first five pages is that the rest of the book might not live up to it. The first five pages of this book are devastating--it really is the fastest a book has ever made me cry--and beautiful and real. But much of the rest of the book doesn't live up to it. I loved Ricky, but we don't spend much time with her; the author chooses instead to give us pages and pages with her husband John, her children Paul and Biscuit (the cutesy nickname makes me wince, but then one of my children goes by Jibbitz at home, so who am I to judge?), John's grown daughter Jess, a random passerby named Gordie. The diffuse focus weakens the book.

I really just did not give a rat's ass about Gordie. Sorry. Ultimately what I show more did care about was Ricky and John and their marriage. The writing of the marriage, of the various ways they fail each other, was very well-done and the best part of the book. I wish there had been more of it! The ending of the book works, despite the self-consciously literary way in which it's written. show less