Novels dealing with grief

[rosebudtwinkletoes]

Hello,

I find solace in books and am looking for recommendations for novels (not self-help) that deal with or are about grief.

My incredible Mum has passed away and i am looking for some reads that can help me through this.

Any authors but nothing trashy if possible.

Thank you so much.

I'm sorry about your mum.

I agree about the cathartic powers of books. Two recent reads that brought back feelings (made me howl) about losing my mum 20 years ago are Carol Rifka Brunt's Tell the Wolves I'm Home and Matthew Thomas We Are Not Ourselves.

I've recently started Decca Aitkenhead's book about her partner drowning in All at Sea, as years ago I read her account in The Guardian of losing her mother at 8 and thought it was the most moving, visceral, personal thing I'd ever read.

Sorry about the loss of your mum. My wonderful mum died 2 years ago. I've just finished reading Man and Boy by Tony Parsons. Not directly about death but involves death of a parent. It had me sobbing but I find that helps me, it also had me laughing and that is life. I have read The 5 People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom and found that made me think differently but that was before mum died. Take care.

Sorry for your loss, OP.

A second vote here for Tell the Wolves I'm Home - it's a very interesting, unusual story about a teenage girl in New York in the 80s, who is absolutely devastated when her favourite and much-loved gay famous artist uncle dies. His secret young lover contacts her after the death, and they develop a friendship.

But my top vote for a book on this subject is The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot, by Angus Wilson. An absolute masterpiece.

'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed is about a woman who walks the Appalachian trail in an attempt to come to terms with the loss of her mother. I found it really moving.

The love verb by Jane green....yes it's a 'chick' book but I've read it more than 4 times now and it's one I can always see myself going back too.

What I Loved completely floored me. The examination of grief is incredibly powerful.

Also, years ago, I remember Moon Tiger (which nobody seems to talk about now) doing similar but for different reasons as it almost comes at it sideways.

My two have been mentioned 'After you'd gone' and 'Anybody out there'. Also CS Lewis A Grief Observed (not fiction).

I'd recommend The Sea by John Banville.

Have you read 'Where my Heart Used to Beat' by Sebastian Faulkes? It's not about grief as such, more about loss. I read it after my dad died last year and it just spoke to my soul.

If you like poetry, you could try The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing which is a collection by many authors put together by Kevin Young.

I highly recommend The Iceberg by Marion Coutts, about the death of her husband, and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, about loss in the context of wartime (the war in Chechnya). Also Wild and Moon Tiger already mentioned above.

Sorry for your loss OP

Seconding a PP's recommendation of H is for Hawk- I loved this book, - it helped me cope with my Dad's death. Very sorry about your Mum

I just finished & recommend The Comfort of Others. Made me cry, anyway. Hope & renewal are themes, too.

I also liked Tell the Wolves I'm Home

... That's funny about H is for Hawk. It felt to me like a book about hawks, mental illness & HM living with what it is to be HM, not about grief, at all. But I realise the illness was triggered by her dad's death.

It's not deep literature, but I once read one called Good Grief about a woman who lost her husband. Wasn't released here, picked it up in the states. Think this is it - www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Grief-Lolly-Winston/dp/0446694843

Marian Keyes' novel Anybody Out There is great - it deals with the loss of a husband.