- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Random House Canada; First Edition edition (Dec 1 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307357023
- ISBN-13: 978-0307357021
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 15 x 3.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 440 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #85,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Quill & Quire
The Heart Does Break was born of paralyzing grief: Jean Baird, struggling with the sudden death of her daughter, Bronwyn, consulted counsellors and psychologists to help her deal with her loss, but found her greatest solace in literature. Baird and her husband, poet George Bowering, asked a broad spectrum of Canadian writers to share their experiences of grief and mourning.
The 19 essays they collected range in tone from angry but loving (Hiromi Goto writing about her immigrant grandparents), to resigned (Stephen Reid accepting that prison inmates often do not have the privilege of attending funerals), to mischievous and naughty (William Whitehead honouring Timothy Findley by remembering moments that made them laugh – and by living to laugh some more).
Most of the essays deal with grief indirectly, telling instead the life stories of deceased loved ones, usually with a strong dose of survivor’s guilt thrown in. Goto explains: “Often people conflate regret with mourning.” Frank Davey, writing about bpNichol, laments, “Part of grief is ... the call that could have been made, the things that could have been said more clearly.” As the essays progress, focusing more on broken relationships and less on grief itself, it is easy to wonder if this is truly what the experience of mourning means: coming to terms with the often complicated and sometimes unpleasant relationships we had with someone who has died. Goto’s essay, coming midway through the book, marks a turning point in the collection; the essays that follow are more about grief as a process, an emotion, and an abstraction.
Each essay is compelling; the writing throughout the collection is honest and highly skilled. Writing about mothers and children, fathers and friends, lovers and artists, all the contributors struggle mightily to understand their grief. In aggregate, the essays offer insight into a painful subject, a sense of community, and an understanding that although no two people grieve in exactly the same way, no one is alone in the experience.
Review
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Read this book — for enlightenment and entertainment, for good writing about a tough subject. If George Bowering’s and Jean Baird’s anthology were a feature film, it would receive innumerable thumbs-up and all the stars.”
— The Globe and Mail
“Readers will be struck by the level of emotional honesty. . . . Readers who have mourned the loss of someone dear will find solace and validation within the pages of this anthology.”
— Winnipeg Free Press
“It might well prove of comfort to the bereft, if only for the variety of experiences these authors have endured.”
— National Post
“A fine and powerful collection that is, in places, impossible to read without crying.”
— The Gazette
“All the stories are well written and all are worth reading.”
— Ottawa Citizen
“Read this book — for enlightenment and entertainment, for good writing about a tough subject. If George Bowering’s and Jean Baird’s anthology were a feature film, it would receive innumerable thumbs-up and all the stars.”
— The Globe and Mail
“Readers will be struck by the level of emotional honesty. . . . Readers who have mourned the loss of someone dear will find solace and validation within the pages of this anthology.”
— Winnipeg Free Press
“It might well prove of comfort to the bereft, if only for the variety of experiences these authors have endured.”
— National Post
“A fine and powerful collection that is, in places, impossible to read without crying.”
— The Gazette
“All the stories are well written and all are worth reading.”
— Ottawa Citizen
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Helpful Book at a Horrible Time of Grief,
By
This review is from: The Heart Does Break: Canadian Writers on Grief and Mourning (Hardcover)
The Heart Does Break: Canadian Writers on Grief and Mourning was waiting for me some months after I'd bought it, after a devastating loss of an irreplaceable person in my life; and I was finally ready to try reading it. I was immediately gripped by the essays. Every single one of them had something different in them that, collectively, addressed just about all aspects of mourning and grief. More than that, it was astonishing just how much people do love and do grieve, and how the losses we endure can threaten to add further loss to humanity -- that is, the loss of our selves, in the mire and mayhem of grief itself. These essays touched my heart, and will be touching many more hearts, most certainly and in the most empathic manner. The writing is particularly great because no other subject could mean so much to most people who have suffered such unbearable, incomprehensible loss. And it's a tribute to the authors, with their stellar accomplishments in this tome, that this most dreaded and inevitable heartache can produce something exceptional and artistic, eternal. I know that for me, there were many vivid and unforgettable passages that made me pause and think, or feel; just as I needed to, in order to continue living and breathing. If you are suffering a terrible loss, give this book a look-over. Give yourself the chance to find some alleviation of the pain, if only a little. This one book does so much with just a few hours worth of your reading time, it's well worth picking up and buying even if you're not sure you are ever going to open it. The sharing of these authors' pain and bewilderment will no doubt mirror some of your own, and obviously provide some therapeutic resonance. At a terrible, life-stopping time, the voices of others cannot help but call you back to life -- hopefully where you belong. (When it reaches you, you'll know this to be the case in a way that not many self-help type books can 'teach' you). I will continue to recommend this beautiful, absorbing book, in the most honest and heartfelt manner. If the heart does break, it does also mend; with time, with patience, with love, and with hearing the voices of others who have gone through the breaking and who have cared enough to share their stories and testify how they managed to survive it.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Easing pain of loss,
By
This review is from: The Heart Does Break: Canadian Writers on Grief and Mourning (Hardcover)
This is a great tool to help you through the pain of losing someone. My husband and I just lost our 20 year old cat whom we had in our lives from an eight month old kitten. A long time for bonding, days, months and years of pure joy. His death has hit us hard and this book of shared memories from an assortment of Canadian authors, persons of note across our Country is a fine and comforting read. I have recommended it to friends and will urge anyone in a state of heart break to get it and read it not all at once but a story once or twice a week. You will identify with the feelings the stories evoke.
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