The truth, or success, of any writer's story lies partly in its specificity and its emotional honesty.

The truth, or success, of any writer's story lies partly in its specificity and its emotional honesty.

It's and old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.

The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course. Until Caroline had died I had belonged to that other world, the place of innocence, and linear expectations, where I thught grief was a simple, wrenching realm of sadness and longing that graduallu receded. What that definition left out was the body blow that loss inflicts, as well as the temporary madness, and a range of less straightforward emotions shocking in their intensity.

the mother's first job is to raise a daughter strong enough to outlast her.

The flaw is the thing we love.

The real hell of this," he told her, "is that you're going to get through it.