Meghan O’Rourke was thirty-two when her mother died of cancer. As a writer, she was fascinated by what she observed of herself in the aftermath: the rage she felt, not only at what had happened to her mother, but also at the inability of people to acknowledge her pain; her sense that the meaning of her life had changed fundamentally with the loss of a parent. The Long Goodbye interleaves personal recollections of her much-loved mother with an examination of what it means to grieve in a society which no longer has the rituals to engage with grief, to understand it, and to let it do both its worst – and its best.
By: Meghan O’Rourke
Published By: Little, Brown Book Group
Year: 2012
