An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

McCracken's story of her very late term stillbirth. I fell in love with the author (though I sort of already was) and her husband and family. This felt necessary for her, and it is a straightforward surprisingly lovely beautifully wrought scream. It eviscerated me and when it had pulled my heart from my body it threw it in the Vitamix. But I was happy to donate my organ because it was clear this was cleansing for her and I wanted her to find that, and somehow it ended up cleansing me.

Before this memoir even starts, we know that it is going to be sad and a baby is going to die. Following that first chapter, Elizabeth McCracken takes us on an emotional, brutally honest, heartrending journey through the loss of her first baby and the survival of her second, as she comes to terms with her loss (which will never go away) and ends up with a happy life.

If I was someone who regularly cried through books, this one would have had me going the entire way. As it was, it was so sad, like a window into the soul of this woman whose first child was stillborn. I recognize the feelings of a bereaved parent perhaps better than most, having watched my parents go through it, and she struck perfectly, painfully true. People don’t know show more how to react to grief, and those parts hurt more than the rest; the friends who simply weren’t there, who acted like it had never happened. I’m sure most of us have lost someone, but I had never lost anyone until my brother died and it astonished me how many “friends” I had who didn’t say a word, while people barely on the edge of my acquaintance went out of their way to help however they could. Elizabeth’s experience as she realized who was there for her and who was not was so moving; I can’t imagine the difficulty of telling people who expected her to be a happy mother with a healthy baby that her child had passed away.

I thought the worst part was when Elizabeth knew her child had died and still had to give birth to him. What a horrible, horrible experience. I wanted to reach through the pages and hug her tight, even though I’ve never met her and probably never will.

Finally, I think reading about Elizabeth’s experience is important; since we struggle to deal with bereaved parents, her memoir will help us to understand just a tiny bit of what they may be feeling. I’d recommend it, but not if you’re looking for light reading.

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Searing examination of the grief that comes with a stillborn baby. Intense and full of breathtaking moments, time spent teetering on the edge of the abyss, time spent in free fall, and time spent blinking, wondering how everything can look so ordinary after it's all over. But it's never all over.

This is an absolutely lovely book about what it means to be human, what it feels like to hurt in ways very nearly unimaginable to those who haven't been there, and what it's like on the other side of that particular ocean.

Extraordinary. The author's narration is beautiful, too.

Highly recommended. Unless you are pregnant or could become pregnant, in which case stay the hell away from this book.

Of course, it is about grief and grieving. I knew that when I added the book to my 'Planning to Read' list. But it does not, let's use a phrase McCracken uses in her book, it does not 'take you by the throat', it does not leave you shaking with racking sobs. It did not make me weep the way I did when I watched a youtube video in memory of a 2 month old who was now dead. It tugged at my heart a lot. It also made me smile in a sad way. For this book, is witty and beautiful. There is sadness, but also, there is joy and hope.

You know what happens in the book - McCracken's nine-month old baby dies shortly before birth. A stillbirth. McCracken goes on to deliver a second baby. Alive and well.

Grief is complex. Difficult for the bereaved, but show more also to the outsider. How do you console the disconsolate? What words are right? What brings comfort? What words are forbidden? Is it okay to mention the tragedy? Or will that rub salt into the wound and bring forth painful memories? Is it okay to say 'I don't know what to say'? Or is that being a coward? How much time before you move on? Is there any such thing as moving on? How long do you acknowledge the calamity then?

This book does not answer all these questions. But it made me wonder. What do I say? How do I react?

Oh, but I did cry. When I read the tender way in which McCracken describes seeing the baby for the first and only time. A beautiful, new, dead baby in diapers and knit cap. Broke my heart.

Why would I want anybody to read a book that made me cry? That would probably make them cry as well? There is not only death in this book. There is life and love and profound beauty of prose. Even the grief is calm in its pain. show less

Of course, it is about grief and grieving. I knew that when I added the book to my 'Planning to Read' list. But it does not, let's use a phrase McCracken uses in her book, it does not 'take you by the throat', it does not leave you shaking with racking sobs. It did not make me weep the way I did when I watched a youtube video in memory of a 2 month old who was now dead. It tugged at my heart a lot. It also made me smile in a sad way. For this book, is witty and beautiful. There is sadness, but also, there is joy and hope.

You know what happens in the book - McCracken's nine-month old baby dies shortly before birth. A stillbirth. McCracken goes on to deliver a second baby. Alive and well.

Grief is complex. Difficult for the bereaved, but show more also to the outsider. How do you console the disconsolate? What words are right? What brings comfort? What words are forbidden? Is it okay to mention the tragedy? Or will that rub salt into the wound and bring forth painful memories? Is it okay to say 'I don't know what to say'? Or is that being a coward? How much time before you move on? Is there any such thing as moving on? How long do you acknowledge the calamity then?

This book does not answer all these questions. But it made me wonder. What do I say? How do I react?

Oh, but I did cry. When I read the tender way in which McCracken describes seeing the baby for the first and only time. A beautiful, new, dead baby in diapers and knit cap. Broke my heart.

Why would I want anybody to read a book that made me cry? That would probably make them cry as well? There is not only death in this book. There is life and love and profound beauty of prose. Even the grief is calm in its pain. show less

It's hard to imagine anything more devastating than the death of a newborn at birth. Elizabeth McCracken describes this experience in her memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. The stillbirth of the baby she and her husband refer to as "Pudding" is the centerpiece of the narrative, which also includes much about their peripatetic and somewhat boozy writing lives. Nothing, however, was ever the same after the baby died before birth. McCracken goes on to get pregnant with her second child while still mourning the first. This book is a quick, intense, moving read.

Yipes. This is the funniest book about stillborn babies I have ever encountered. The chapters are short and few, each with its own heartbreaking, beautiful writing. Worth it as a contrastive companion to Didion's "Year of Magical Thinging" and especially worth it for the description of an intern giving a cervical exam. Oh, and it's not all terrible things happening.