{"product_id":"the-long-goodbye-isbn-9781594485664","title":"The Long Goodbye","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Anguished, beautifully written... \u003ci\u003eThe Long Goodbye\u003c\/i\u003e is an elegiac depiction of drama as old as life.\" -- \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Invisible Kingdom\u003c\/i\u003e, one of America's foremost young literary voices, a transcendent portrait of the unbearable anguish of grief and the enduring power of familial love.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat does it mean to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age of fifty-five, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief-its monumental agony and microscopic intimacies-an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eO'Rourke's story is one of a life gone off the rails, of how watching her mother's illness-and separating from her husband-left her fundamentally altered. But it is also one of resilience, as she observes her family persevere even in the face of immeasurable loss. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith lyricism and unswerving candor, \u003ci\u003eThe Long Goodbye\u003c\/i\u003e conveys the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life, and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.\"Piercingly candid.\" --\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intelligent, heart-laden narrative... O'Rourke has written a beautiful elegy. She celebrates her mother and movingly meditates on the knotty mystery of grief.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[The Long Goodbye] evokes the universalities of love and pain. We feel our own grief, past and potential, as O'Rourke grapples with hers... [She] capitalizes on her background as a poet, sprinkling her prose with imagery and metaphor.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A \u003ci\u003etour de force et tristesse\u003c\/i\u003e... [O'Rourke's] mother emerges less as a rough sketch and more as a completed portrait, a lively and memorable person.\" --Lorrie Moore, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Penetrating... There is a bracing frankness to O'Rourke's reminiscences... The weightiness of O'Rourke's subject matter is leavened by her insight and wry humor. An elegant and erudite treatment of grief, O'Rourke reaches out to the beraeved and unbereaved alike.\" --\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An achingly moving memoir... Barbara Kelly O'Rourke used to bid her daughter good night with the line, 'I love you to deaht.' With this unusually intelligent and emotional book, her daughter makes clear that we can, in fact, love beyond it.\" --\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[The Long Goodbye is] a secular ceremony, one that memorializes the mother's best aspects, her daughter's effort to be present throughout her decline, and the terrible ,common burden of being the person who continues to live.\" --\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"With her ear for double entendres and eye for aesthetic lapses, O'Rourke is able to narrate her months of mourning with wry wit and charming perception... It shows not only how to heal but also how to help.\" --\u003ci\u003eNPR.org\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A beautiful memoir about a daughter's love for her mother.\" -\u003ci\u003e-The Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Meghan O'Rourke, a celebrated poet and critic, writes prose as if she was born to it first. Her memoir \u003ci\u003eThe Long Goodbye\u003c\/i\u003e is emotionally acute, strikingly empathetic, thorough and unstinting intellectually, and of course elegantly wrought. But it's above all a useful book, for life-the good bits and the sad ones, too.\" \u003cbr\u003e-Richard Ford \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Meghan O'Rourke has written a beautiful memoir about her loss of a truly irreplaceable mother-yes, it is sad, it is in fact heartrending, but it is many things more: courageous, inspiring, wonderfully intelligent and informed, and an intimate portrait of an American family as well.\" \u003cbr\u003e-Joyce Carol Oates \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Meghan O'Rourke is an extraordinary writer, and she offers precious gifts to readers in this powerful memoir. There is the gift of entering her family, with its vibrant characters and culture. There is the gift of her profound insights into the experience of grief, its grip and the diverse ways we struggle to reenter a world where joy is felt. But most of all, there is her gift of showing us how love prevails after even the most devastating loss.\" \u003cbr\u003e-Jerome Groopman, M.D., Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, and author of \u003ci\u003eThe Anatomy of Hope\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHow Doctors Think\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMeghan O’Rourke\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the poetry collections \u003ci\u003eOnce\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHalflife\u003c\/i\u003e. She is a cultural critic for \u003ci\u003eSlate\u003c\/i\u003e, and her essays and poems have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker, The Nation, \u003c\/i\u003eand other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Riverhead Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305201946853,"sku":"NP9781594485664","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781594485664.jpg?v=1767740300","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-long-goodbye-isbn-9781594485664","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}