| Summary: |
The longer we live, the more people we know -- or at least know of -- who die. Sympathy cards and sad movies tell us we should grieve and be sorrowful. But losing those around us arouses many other feelings as well as, or instead of, sadness.: feelings we're terrified or ashamed to talk about because we suspect that if we did, others would call us crazy, cold, unfilial, unfaithful, or immature. Thus at those very moments when we are most engaged with death's staggering enormity, when we face the most transformative dramas of our lives, we lock away deep inside of us our truest, rawest reactions. Now, in The Farewell Chronicles, with a voice and style that is all her own, Anneli Rufus investigates our responses to death as no writer has ever done before. Starting with keen observations on the death of many she has known -- loved ones and casual acquaintances, children and adults, friends and enemies -- Rufus explores with candor, clarity, and compassion those reactions that feel so real and yet so scarily inappropriate: from guilt, greed, and relief to apathy, rejoicing, and beyond. While polity society hesitates even to talk about death, The Farewell Chronicles breaks this code of silence, daring to show that mourning is as individual as we are, and that there are no "right" or "wrong" ways to mourn. |
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