There is no shortage of memoirs on grief.
There is Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which explores the aftermath of her losing both her child and husband in a short period of time. It is a book everyone recommends, including me. More recently we have Michelle Zauner’s “Crying in H Mart” about the loss of her mother, and Kathryn Schulz’s “Lost and Found,” which is a memoir of both grief (over the loss of her father) and love (the start of a new relationship) simultaneously.
One could argue that we both have enough memoirs about grief, given that there are so many, and also that there could never be enough, given that grief is a universal human experience that also somehow comes in an infinite number of varieties.
“Memorial Days,” Geraldine Brooks’ memoir of the sudden death of her husband, writer Tony Horwitz, is not just another book about grief. Structured in alternating chapters, one thread recounts her experience of receiving the news of her husband’s death following a sudden cardiac event on the streets of Washington, D.C., while in the midst of a book tour. I found it almost impossible to read these chapters without experiencing a welling of my own emotions as Brooks recounts her shock and sudden disorientation at being in a world without her partner.
Brooks and Horwitz met in journalism school in New York, married not long after and then spent years together as foreign correspondents for the Wall Street Journal. A desire to find roots and stability to raise a family brought them to Martha’s Vineyard, where they would raise two boys, and Brooks, a native Australian, would start writing and publishing novels, including “March,” the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner.
Horowitz won a Pulitzer for his reporting and wrote books of his own, including “Confederates in the Attic,” for my money one of the most entertaining and insightful works of historical reportage ever.
In “Memorial Days,” Brooks shows us a true partnership, a couple certain they had many years of sitting on a porch with a glass of wine at sunset ahead of them.
The other half of the book has Brooks in a rented shack on a remote Australian island years after her husband’s death trying to find the space to finally, fully grieve. The immediate aftermath of Horowitz’s passing was consumed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Brooks finishing and then promoting her novel, “Horse.” On the island, her only companions are the sea, the birds and a somewhat random sampling of her husband’s diaries, one of which includes his thoughts at the start of their courtship.
Her thoughts are consumed by what one would expect, like could they have seen this coming? Possibly yes. Horowitz had pushed hard, maybe too hard to finish the book he was on tour for, “Spying on the South,” showing signs of cardiac issues for several months. But also, no, as this was someone who always pushed himself hard, whose drive and charisma seemed to be an inexhaustible source of energy.
Brooks is wise enough to know there are no answers to be found in her time alone, but there is progress to be made. As the reader we see how impressed she was with her husband, the pride she takes in his work, which induced me to start re-reading “Confederates in the Attic.”
The marriage of Brooks and Horwitz is both amazing and ordinary, as perhaps most marriages are. It is terrible that it was cut so short, but “Memorial Days” gives due justice to what it means to live and love and experience loss.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “In My Time of Dying” by Sebastian Junger
2. “King” by Jonathan Eig
3. “Talking to The Ground” by Douglas Preston
4. “Lost Birds” by Anne Hillerman
5. “James” by Percival Everett
— Mike S., Bolingbrook
For Mike, I’m recommending the start of Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series, “Baltimore Blues.”
1. “The Measure” by Nikki Erlick
2. “James” by Percival Everett
3. “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
4. “The Women” by Kristin Hannah
5. “Lightning Strike” by William Kent Krueger
— Dick H., Woodstock
I think Dick might take to Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men.”
1. “Role of a Lifetime” by Steven Fortuna
2. “The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis” by George Stephanopoulos and Lisa Dickey
3. “Cradles of the Reich” by Jennifer Coburn
4. “Bad Country” by CB McKenzie
5. “The Texas Murders” by James Patterson
— Steven F., Naperville
For Steven, I’m recommending one of S.A. Cosby’s powerful mysteries, “Razorblade Tears.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.