Grief is for People

Exposing the magical thinking and murk that follow a friend's suicide ... honest, painful and bitingly funny, I can't imagine a better companion to guide us through the pain of losing a friend; I will be keeping it close for years to come -- Meghan O'Rourke, author of 'The Invisible Kingdom'
I have come to rely on Sloane Crosley for her oyster knife humour, bourbon hot observation, and indelible portraits of how we live with each other [but this] about how we live without the ones we love ... it is the book I didn't know I needed to read -- Tayari Jones, author of 'An American Marriage'
Perreault is gone, as is the world he thrived in, so where does that leave Crosley? Here. Offering us a look into his life through the lens of her love, pain and admiration. Telling us, with precision and generosity, how it might be when it is our turn to remember what was true about those we've lost. * New York Times *
Tender and poignant ... though it's loss [Grief is for People] grapples with, the pages brim with life -- Keziah Weir * Vanity Fair *
Even bereaved, Crosley is funny, excellent, caustic. [She is] thoughtful about things most people don't want to think about. How suicide "undermines our sense of fairness." That those left behind feel guilty, think they should have caught the signs, been more vigilant, but they're wrong. We cannot spend our lives "lunging at invisible monsters" ... it's honest and hedgehog-fierce with love * The Times *
A stunning investigation into the nature of loss [offering] a bittersweet balm to many ... Grief is for People is an ambitious book lightened by strains of acerbic comedy * Vogue *
Is it wrong to say that a memoir about loss and grieving is fun to read? If so, I'm in trouble, because I enjoyed every word of this book. I also ached and suffered along with Crosley: her portrait of mourning after the suicide of her best friend is gutting and deeply engaging -- Susan Orlean, author of 'The Orchid Thief'
Crosley holds Russell in her heart with humor and humanity, and although she emphasizes that writing is not a consolation or an act of therapy, it is nonetheless a testament. In a way, she recovers Russell not by recovering her stolen jewelry but by gifting him to all of us and preserving him in a more indelible sort of amber. Books, too, get old without ageing, at least if they are as abiding as this one is * Washington Post *
This moving portrait of loss ... cleverly bends elements of a mystery thriller with memoir, dissecting grief and the many ways it presents itself while even managing to make you laugh * Red Magazine *
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss * Kirkus Reviews *
Potent and propulsive, a lyrical meditation on loss and what comes after. Grief Is for People is heartbreaking and wholly original -- Tara Westover, author of 'Educated'
An indelible portrait of a singular friendship, Grief Is for People is a beautifully written and sharply observed memoir about grief, yes, but also: secrets, betrayal, rage, work, community, and most of all, love. It's both a provocation and a balm to the soul. -- Dani Shapiro, author of 'Family History'
Grief Is for People captures the feeling of watching a beloved, inappropriate and wild person fit less and less with the times we live in. Like Didion's The Year Of Magical Thinking or Defoe's Journal of a Plague Year, Grief Is for People takes us through the ordinary, awful and never-quite-ending experience of loss. It also made me laugh very hard, many times. I can't stop thinking about it -- John Mulaney
A celebration of the ambiguities of our deepest connections and a manifestation of love so strong that it emanates forgiveness and gratitude -- Heather Havrilesky
In this aching meditation on loss and friendship, essayist and novelist Crosle eulogizes her late literary mentor and best friend against the backdrop of the high-pressure publishing industry ... Crosley elegantly links the two losses by explaining how her fevered desire to reclaim her burglarized items stood in for her inability to reclaim Russell. Her characteristically whip-smart prose takes on a newly introspective quality as she reinvigorates dusty publishing memoir tropes and captures the minutiae of a complicated friendship with humor and heart. This is a must-read * Publishers Weekly *
Crosley is a tightrope writer of devastating wit and plain devastation, a balancing act no doubt requiring even more muscle in this memoir of her grief ... Structuring this memoir around the five stages of grief, Crosley denies. She bargains. She finds herself in a shady third-floor suite in the diamond district with truly shocking results. And she writes. Also a story of the shifting sands of the last two decades in book publishing and the author's and her friend's changing places within it, this is a searching, impassioned, cathartic, and loving elegy -- Annie Bostrom * Booklist *
I am a Crosley fan and, to my mind, this is her best book: subtle, brutal and, amazingly, funny, with twists that made me catch my breath ... What makes Crosley's book stand out is that it is not just about the madness of grief, but about the joyfulness of Perreault, a man brimming with so much charisma he could have starred in his own "spin-off show". This is Crosley's best book yet. -- Hadley Freeman * Sunday Times *
Throughout, Crosley cites Joan Didion, whose two personal books on grief, 'The Year Of Magical Thinking' and 'Blue Nights', she obviously sees as a touchstone for her own. To me, 'Grief Is For People' is every bit their equal in eloquence, intensity and toughness * NPR *
"Here's a renowned humorist writing about suicide" I thought ... it's a very unusual book, but I really loved it and I'm very glad I was able to read it. I actually read it twice. She pulled it off -- Jay McInerney * Interview Magazine *
In this vivid, and bitingly funny account, Sloane Crosley exposes the magical thinking and murk that follow a friend's suicide. Crosley's prose is honest, lucid, and always surprising; I can't imagine a better companion to guide us through the pain of losing a friend. A painful and necessary book; I will be keeping it close for years to come -- Meghan O'Rourke, author of 'The Invisible Kingdom'
I have come to rely on Sloane Crosley for her oyster knife humour, bourbon hot observation, and indelible portraits of how we live with each other. Grief Is For People is about how we live without the ones we love. Crosley brings her whole self to this memoir - her gifts, her flaws, her intellect, her wit and emotion. She loves hard, grieves hard, and writes with the beauty and urgency of a white hot star. I wish I didn't 'get' this book as much as I do but Grief Is for People is the book I didn't know I needed to read -- Tayari Jones, author of 'An American Marriage'
A stunning investigation into the nature of loss, Grief is for People is an ambitious book lightened by strains of acerbic comedy. Crosley, who is perhaps best known for her effervescent essay collection I Was Told There'd Be Cake hasn't abandoned her spritely wit, but she is looking more critically at what matters here. A quixotic hunt to reclaim stolen jewellery is intertwined with the equally insurmountable task of better understanding the friend she has lost. The loving and complex tribute Crosley has paid to him here will no doubt offer a bittersweet balm to many * Vogue *
PRAISE FOR SLOANE CROSLEY -- :
Crosley wields her wit and commands all of your attention... * Esquire *
[Crosley] has that rare ability to treat scrapes with sardonic humor and inject serious subjects with levity and hijinks with real feeling -- a sort of unlicensed nurse to our souls * NPR *
She writes so sharply and brightly * Observer *
Grief Is for People, is Sloane Crosley's best book yet. Play[ing] to all her strengths ... it's a book that leaves you with no choice but to think of those you've lost and makes you want to cling on to loved ones with everything you've got. But it's also the portrait of a glorious friendship and a singular, complicated man; a glimpse of New York publishing - where the two met and worked together - in its heyday; of a hunt for stolen jewellery. It's witty and sharp, using its jokes to bring you closer rather than hold you at arm's length. It aches and howls, at times it will drive all of the air out of you with sadness. Grief Is for People conjures up Joan Didion and Sheila Heti, even Nora Ephron, but more than that it confirms Sloane Crosley as one of the greats in her own right. * The Saturday Paper *