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The Long Goodbye
Paperback, 306 pages, Penguin Group USA, List Price: $16 | purchase
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Book Summary
The author discusses how caring for her terminally ill mother ultimately strengthened the bond between the two, as well as fortified the author's family during the difficult time. By the author of the poetry collection Halflife.
This book is about:
- O'Rourke, Meghan,
- Mothers,
- Bereavement,
- Loss (Psychology),
- Grief,
- Poets, American,
- 21st century,
- Death,
- Biography
NPR stories about The Long Goodbye
New In Paperback
Foreign Affairs: Love In Rome, Battle In Cuba And Mystery In Sweden
Meghan O'Rourke's memoir, The Long Goodbye, chronicles her mother's cancer and eventual death based on a series of essays that appeared in Slate. As critic Alice Gregory observes: "She poetically situates her own grief within a larger examination of mourning rituals in contemporary American life, or rather our lack of mourning rituals. She envies her Jewish friends who sit shiva and wonders why certain co-workers refuse to ask how... more
Book Reviews
'The Long Goodbye': A Syllabus For Modern Mourning
April 14, 2011 After poet and critic Meghan O'Rourke's mother died of cancer at 55, she worked through her grief by writing. Her memoir combines the "exquisitely personal" with research of other cultures' mourning rituals that don't ignore suffering.
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