Fi

A truly extraordinary memoir about a mother’s loss of her son: beautiful, fearless, raw and an utterly compelling read – Helen Macdonald, author of H is for HawkFuller is a sublime writer. In the hands of another memoirist, the story of Fi might be unbearably sad, but this book is a mesmeric celebration of a boy who died too soon, a mother’s love and her resilience. It will help others surviving loss - surviving life * New York Times *A devastating, profoundly moving and uplifting memoir – as told by a brave, wonderful mother who found herself ultimately able to withstand the most terrible of tests – Ben Goldsmith, author of God Is An OctopusIncandescent, burning with both grief and life, a book so hot it melts the gold to mend the cracks of a smashed psyche in a brilliant act of literary kintsugi – Jay Griffiths, author of WildAn astonishing memoir. Written in a rush of grief, it is full of beauty and pain: sensual and corporeal, spiritual and philosophical, and utterly human. Anyone who knows grief will learn something new here. I will never forget this book – Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My FatherA gutting, terrifying, profound and defiantly enthralling read. Toward the end of the memoir, Fuller quotes Franz Kafka: ‘A book must be an axe to the frozen sea inside us.’ This book is a sharp ax. By its end, I was moved and devastated yet somehow strengthened * Washington Post *In the wake of immense loss, what remains? With clear, luminous prose and courageous insight, Fuller investigates… The writing is so stunning, immediate, and heartfelt that the book is often as difficult to read as it is to put down. A true marvel of a memoir, simultaneously beautiful and devastating * Kirkus, Starred Review *Fuller’s prose is raw, primal and electric, pulling the reader into both her shock and her attempts to carry on with a heart cleaved in two. Readers who are experiencing their own grief will find solace here, while those who’ve been following Fuller for years through her beautifully written memoirs will want to be with her as she recounts this tragedy * Booklist *[A] memoir…as raw and heart-shattering as you would expect, while still being a thing of beauty * i *Life writers often want to be likeable. Fuller’s not in that camp: rawly bereft, she doesn’t care how she comes across… It’s no easy ride in her company, but that’s the point: she doesn’t spare us the pain inflicted by “the sharp knife of a short life” * Guardian *

Alexandra Fuller is the author of four memoirs, including Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight - a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Booksense Best Non-Fiction book, a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize - and the New York Times-bestselling Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, two books of non-fiction, and the novel Quiet Until the Thaw. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, National Geographic, Granta, The New York Times, Guardian and Financial Times.