Grief

"The art of losing isn't hard to master," wrote poet Elizabeth Bishop. Perhaps she meant that we will all face loss at some point in our lives. In this collection, we have brought together texts that take up the universal experience of grief.

The Wrong Daughter

by Dandy Smith

Publication year 2024

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Conflict, Fear, Forgiveness, Grief, Guilt, Hate & Anger, Love, Memory, Revenge, Mental Health, Childhood & Youth, Coming of Age, Midlife, Death, The Past, Place, Family, Siblings, Self Discovery, Community, Beauty, Fate, Good & Evil, Justice, Loyalty & Betrayal, Order & Chaos, Power & Greed, Safety & Danger, Trust & Doubt, Truth & Lies

Tags Horror & Suspense, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Dramatic Literature

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The Year of Magical Thinking

by Joan Didion

Publication year 2005

Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction

Themes Love, Memory, Marriage, Mental Health, Grief

Tags Grief & Death, Psychology, Psychology, Classic Fiction, Biography

Joan Didion’s memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, explores her experiences mourning the death of her husband and the severe illness of her daughter in 2003. Didion, an American journalist and essayist, first gained popularity during the 1960s and 70s covering counterculture and Hollywood, but in The Year of Magical Thinking she turns to more intimate material. Didion’s husband John Gregory Dunne died of a heart attack while he and Didion were caring for their... Read The Year of Magical Thinking Summary

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

by Michael Chabon

Publication year 2007

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Conflict, Grief, Guilt, Community, Immigration, Nation, Fate, Religion & Spirituality

Tags Science Fiction, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Fantasy

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007) is a literary detective novel by American author Michael Chabon. It is set in an alternate history where the United States government created the District of Sitka in Alaska as a temporary refugee settlement for European Jews after the State of Israel was destroyed in 1948. In the novel’s present timeline, Detective Meyer Landsman investigates the murder of his neighbor, Emanuel Lasker, against the backdrop of Sitka’s imminent Reversion to... Read The Yiddish Policemen's Union Summary

They Went Left

by Monica Hesse

Publication year 2020

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Family, Emotions/Behavior: Courage, Perseverance, Fear, Grief, Guilt, Hate & Anger, Love, Memory, Death, Marriage, Siblings, War, Good & Evil, Justice, Truth & Lies

Tags Historical Fiction, World War II, Military & War, World History

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Things in Nature Merely Grow

by Yiyun Li

Publication year 2025

Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction

Themes Grief, Mothers, Literature

Tags Contemporary Literature, Literary Fiction

Yiyun Li’s 2025 memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow, is a work of creative nonfiction that explores the author’s grief after the suicides of her two sons: 16-year-old Vincent in 2017 and 19-year-old James in 2024. In the aftermath of this second, unforeseen tragedy, Li attempts to construct a framework for living within what she terms the “abyss” of her new reality, a permanent state that defies conventional narratives of healing. The memoir continues a... Read Things in Nature Merely Grow Summary

Tom's Crossing

by Mark Z. Danielewski

Publication year 2025

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Emotions/Behavior: Courage, Perseverance, Fear, Grief, Hope, Love, Revenge, Indigenous Identity, Masculinity, Coming of Age, Death, Future, The Past, Animals, Nature Versus Nurture, Friendship, Teamwork, Colonialism, Good & Evil, Justice, Power & Greed, Safety & Danger, Truth & Lies

Tom’s Crossing: A Western (2025) is a novel by Mark Z. Danielewski. Set in 1982 in a fictionalized version of Provo, Utah, where the author grew up, the story follows the friendship between two teenage boys, Tom Gatestone and Kalin March. When Tom dies, Kalin honors his deathbed promise to Tom to rescue two horses from a slaughter paddock and guide them to a remote mountain sanctuary known as “the Crossing.” This act ignites a... Read Tom's Crossing Summary

Towers Falling

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Publication year 2016

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Grief, Race, Community, Family

Tags Historical Fiction, Race & Racism, Relationships, Grief & Death, Diversity, American Literature, 9/11, Children`s Literature, Education, Education, Realistic Fiction, World History

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