{"product_id":"once-more-we-saw-stars-isbn-9780525435341","title":"Once More We Saw Stars","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn unforgettable memoir of courage and transformation and “the power of love in the face of unimaginable loss\" (Cheryl Strayed).\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A miracle.... A narrative of grief and acceptance that is compulsively readable and never self-indulgent.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eTwo-year-old Greta Greene is sitting with her grandmother on a park bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when a brick crumbles from a windowsill overhead, falls, and strikes her unconscious. She is immediately rushed to the hospital. Jayson Greene’s memoir begins with this event and with the anguish he and his wife, Stacy, confront in the wake of their daughter’s trauma and the hours leading up to her death. But \u003ci\u003eOnce More We Saw Stars\u003c\/i\u003e quickly becomes a narrative that is as much about hope and healing as it is about grief and loss. Jayson recognizes, even in the midst of his ordeal, that there will be a life for him beyond it—that if only he can continue moving forward, from one moment to the next, he will survive what seems unsurvivable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith raw honesty, deep emotion, and exquisite tenderness, Jayson Greene captures both the fragility of life and absoluteness of death, and most important of all, the unconquerable power of love. This is a book that will change the way you look at the world.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTIME\u003c\/i\u003e MAGAZINE • \u003ci\u003eGLAMOUR \u003cb\u003e• \u003c\/b\u003eGOOD HOUSEKEEPING \u003cb\u003e• BOOKPAGE \u003cb\u003e•\u003c\/b\u003e BOOK RIOT \u003cb\u003e• \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eLIBRARY JOURNAL\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A miracle. . . . A narrative of grief and acceptance that is compulsively readable and never self-indulgent.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A masterful literary performance. . . . Greene offers a raw, luminous portrait of suffering and partial healing. . . . [A] beautiful, devastating book.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Greene] writes gorgeously. . . . A valuable addition to the literature of grief.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Masterful and compassionate. . . . An intensely moving, life-affirming story.” —\u003ci\u003eRolling Stone\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] melodic, sensitive tribute. . . . [Greene’s] emotionally transparent story resonates not just for the intense sadness at its core, but also its implicit message of perseverance.” —\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What sets [this] memoir apart is [Greene’s] ability to illuminate the mundane moments that become surreal in the midst of trauma and tragedy. . . . \u003ci\u003eOnce More We Saw Stars\u003c\/i\u003e offers glimpses of humor, light and love amid the loss.” —\u003ci\u003eTime\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Anyone who has lost someone can find themselves in here. . . . Greene peels the skin right back on painfully intimate truths, and lets the air at something visceral in a way that many writers on death fail to do. The result is a grief memoir of rare . . . honesty.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Irish Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This minutely observed memoir will surely be helpful to other people whose world changes in an instant. Greene, a journalist, never flinches from his distress and is not ashamed to describe himself as he truly is as he struggles to carry on in a world where [his daughter] no longer exists.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e (London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heart-wrenching yet life-affirming. . . . An amazing and inspirational exploration on the meaning of grief and the interconnectedness of love and loss.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Compassionate and sensitively told, Greene’s story accomplishes an exceptionally difficult feat: transforming tragedy into both a spiritual journey and a celebration of wonder. . . . A poignantly uplifting memoir of moving forward after terrible loss.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003eJAYSON GREENE is a contributing writer and former senior editor at \u003ci\u003ePitchfork\u003c\/i\u003e. His writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eGQ\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications. This is his first book. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.\u003cb\u003eExcerpted from \u003ci\u003eOnce More We Saw Stars\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEver since the accident, I have avoided going to the park. The park was our place, Greta’s and mine — every tree, every leaf, every passing doggy belonged to the two of us. Even within my cocoon of shock, I am sure going there would pierce my defenses, flooding me the way my first trip outside did after she died.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And then, one day, just as the summer light is beginning to change, I wake up with a familiar itch. \u003ci\u003eI need to go running in the park.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I step outside and feel only the warmth of the sun. I round the corner on the block that leads to the parade grounds, just outside the park’s southwest entrance. The street is wide, quiet, shaded. There is no one outside, no one to nod at, make eye contact with, step around.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I enter the parade grounds and run past fields full of children, my eyes fixed straight ahead. To my left, a middle-school football team is doing speed and endurance drills, dancing frantically on their toes and dropping down for push-ups. Two boys swing a bat lazily to my right, smacking a baseball into the same bulged-out spot on the chain-link. It hits the fence with a loud \u003ci\u003ebong \u003c\/i\u003eas I run past, but I do not flinch. I reach the edge of the park, tennis courts to my right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There at the park’s mouth, my heart stirs, and I feel a peculiar elation. \u003ci\u003eI recognize her. \u003c\/i\u003eGreta is somewhere nearby. I feel her energy, playfully expectant. \u003ci\u003eCome find me, Daddy, \u003c\/i\u003eshe says. Tears spring and run freely down my face. \u003ci\u003eI hear you, baby girl, \u003c\/i\u003eI whisper\u003ci\u003e. Daddy’s coming to get you\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Elated, I enter the park and immediately spot her; she is waiting for me, hiding behind the big tree in the clearing between the Vanderbilt playground and the duck pond. She appears from behind the tree with a flourish, giggling, just like in our old game: She would run out into the hallway from the bedroom where we had been playing, either naked or in her diaper, and cast me an impish look, asking, “Where’s Greta?” I would feign great perplexity, turning over small toys on the floor to see if she was under them, peeking behind the couch, clutching my head in mock terror. “Oh no, what have we done?” I would moan. “We’ve lost her!” She would laugh, run back in, and announce, “Greta came right back!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Standing in the park, staring at her, I make a strange and primal sound, deep and rich like a belly laugh, hard and sharp like a sob. \u003ci\u003eYou are here. You picked the park. Good choice, baby girl. \u003c\/i\u003eOblivious to the people around me, I run to her. She wiggles in anticipatory joy. Stooping down, I scoop her up under her soft armpits, her shoulder blades meeting at the pads of my fingers, and I lift her up into the sky. She is invisible to passersby — to them, there is nothing in the spot next to the tree where she stands laughing and clapping but a patch of grass, and there is nothing in my arms but air. But she is not here for them; she is here for me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She gazes down at me, her smile that turned crooked at the bottom like mine crumpling her wide-open face. I bend my arms and lower her face down to mine and kiss her, slowly. Then I set her back down in the grass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eYou stay here, okay? \u003c\/i\u003eI say. \u003ci\u003eDaddy’s going for a run, okay, sweetie pie?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eOh yeah, okay! \u003c\/i\u003eshe says back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I turn around and begin running hard along the perimeter of the pond, where we had dipped her hand in the water, splashing and saying, “Here we go, ducks! Here we go!” The playground recedes behind me, where I had pushed her on the swing while she sang, “Poopy, poopy, poopy poopy,” to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” at the top of her lungs. “If my kid’s saying ‘poopy’ tonight,” the mother next to me deadpanned, “I’ll know where he picked it up.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I feel her presence filling up my heart, and with it comes a strange exhilaration that I have felt often in the weeks after her death. Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it, a blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin, translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t know quite what’s behind it yet. But it is there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I am treading ether, a new and unfamiliar kind of contact high. I have been raised secular by my parents, and I’ve never set foot in a church for more than an hour. But I will do anything for Greta, I am learning. And that includes becoming a mystic, so that I might still enjoy her company.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When I reach the edge of the park again, I stop and feel a torrent of words flood me. I grope for my phone, blindly choosing the most recent document, a mess of to-dos and grocery lists. Underneath a reminder to pick up pita and above a confirmation number for a UPS delivery, I write, “There will be more light upon this earth for me.”","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44887022829797,"sku":"NP9780525435341","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525435341.jpg?v=1767734143","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/once-more-we-saw-stars-isbn-9780525435341","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}