A brilliant, elliptical, sharp, moving look at grief and what it means to lose someone. Didion's sadness and inability to fully comprehend the situation suffuses every page and it is heartbreaking - and yet, there is a reassuring quality as she crosses Lexington Avenue at the end of the book and sees that her life is moving forward and that this is the way it must be. It is a sense of catharsis, if still a sad one. The book inspired me to think about my own encounters with grief and loss and I can't say that I've ever lost anyone in remotely the same way as Didion has here - but I take comfort in knowing that, when the time comes, this book will be here and will speak to me all the more in that moment of confusion and emptiness. Lots of thoughts about loss and quite a bit of "warning: contains me" (as Neil Gaiman might say) in addition to the review itself over at Raging Biblioholism: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-lq
