Memorial Days

Brooks and her husband, Tony Horwitz, had been reporters in war zones, but nothing prepared her for his sudden death, at just 60, after three decades together. Four years later, she journeyed to a remote island near Tasmania “to do the unfinished work of grieving.” This memoir is her report back, at once a spare accounting of tragic detail and an appreciation of the healing properties of solitude * New York Times Book Review *

This intimate memoir of grief is a lifeline to others dealing with loss. … Intensely intimate and candid … Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. … Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it’s moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief

* Los Angeles Times *Brooks wield[s] precise and often beautiful language and, in the most graceful way possible, point[s] a way forward. A rich account of marriage and mourning … Memorial Days contains much compassionate advice for those who have, or will, suffer the same ferocious blow * Washington Post *Memorial Days joins Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart as memoirs of grief worth seeking out… Memorial Days gives due justice to what it means to live and love and experience loss * Chicago Tribune *Brooks closes her book with advice that, as a widow myself, I fully attest to: ‘In whatever way works for you, tell your story.’ It will not bring your loved one back. But as Brooks valiantly demonstrates, it will sustain you even as you endure * Wall Street Journal *Highly recommended to those who enjoy her novels, but also to anyone who needs to remember how joy and grief can (and should) coexist * Maggie Stiefvater *Beautiful. Every single page, every single word. [Memorial Days] is not merely an unflinching exploration of grief, it’s a precise examination of the nitty-gritty, often infuriating work demanded of the souls left behind. … Brooks never loses her sense of humor or remarkable ability to convey a landscape or bring people you’ll never meet to life. Brooks is one of our literary treasures and Horwitz was one of our literary treasures. Read this book. Then read one of Tony’s. Or, better still, take a month or two and read every single book this remarkable couple has gifted us * Chris Bohjalian *[Brooks] returned to her native Australia, to an isolated shack on tiny, sparsely populated Flinders Island to face her loss by writing this book: the story of Horwitz’s accomplished life and untimely death … the narrative of their wonderful relationship, which began when they met as students at Columbia Journalism School and could almost be a treatment for a rom-com. … The grace Brooks offered herself with this time alone is offered to the reader all through the book; Memorial Days will surely join the other classics delivered to new widows by their literary friends * Boston Globe *Absorbing…A graceful and moving meditation on bereavement * Kirkus *