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Grief Is for People
Following the death of her closest friend, Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss in this disarmingly witty and poignant memoir.
Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and surprisingly suspenseful portrait of friendship and a book about loss packed with verve for life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in friends, philosophy, and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.
Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and surprisingly suspenseful portrait of friendship and a book about loss packed with verve for life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in friends, philosophy, and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published February 27, 2024
About the author
Sloane Crosley
17 books2,436 followersSloane Crosley is the author of the novels Cult Classic and The Clasp, as well as three books of essays collections, most recently Look Alive Out There and the New York Times bestsellers I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number. A two-time finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, her work has been selected for numerous anthologies. Her next book, Grief Is for People, will be out in early 2024. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, she lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,484 reviews
April 23, 2024
yes.
this book had two of my favorite things (honest writing; sloane crosley) and two of my least favorite things (writing about the pandemic; writing about new york as if it's the center of the world).
but the first two certainly made up for the latter.
i mourned russell alongside sloane, wondering HOW and WHY and wishing this gorgeous friendship could have lasted far longer. the middle sections can feel confusing and overwritten, but that only adds to the feeling of total discombobulation at this loss.
bottom line: i can't imagine how hard this book was to write, but i'm grateful to read it.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
this book had two of my favorite things (honest writing; sloane crosley) and two of my least favorite things (writing about the pandemic; writing about new york as if it's the center of the world).
but the first two certainly made up for the latter.
i mourned russell alongside sloane, wondering HOW and WHY and wishing this gorgeous friendship could have lasted far longer. the middle sections can feel confusing and overwritten, but that only adds to the feeling of total discombobulation at this loss.
bottom line: i can't imagine how hard this book was to write, but i'm grateful to read it.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
May 8, 2024
4.5 stars
I loved this book despite its imperfections. It contains powerful writing from Sloane Crosley about her grief process after one of her closest friends died by suicide. There’s so much sad honesty in these pages, about missing her friend, feeling angry at the world, about time passing and your person still being gone. I liked that she shines a spotlight on grieving a close friend given that grief in media is often portrayed centering a nuclear family member or romantic partner. Crosley’s prose overall impressed me – from the first page she jumps right into the action and I was hooked until the very end. I read this whole book in one afternoon.
There were a few passages in this book that took it to the five-star level for me, passages that captured grief in such a poignant and real way. There’s one passage about grief being like holding a vase and not having anywhere to put it down that made me cry. And the last few pages made me bawl. I loved these parts of the book and they felt so affirming to me in my own grief processes, that sometimes grief just is and you have to find a way to keep living even with the pain.
I want to be honest about what I perceive as some of the book’s faults, a minor one and then a more major one. First, I think at times Crosley’s prose read as a bit intellectualized to me, when she could’ve added even more detail about the friendship or her or her friend’s background. Second, I took some issue with how she wrote about Russell’s problematic behavior. I do think it’s important that she named the parts of her friend that weren’t ideal or that were problematic; I love not idealizing people who’ve passed away. Yet, some of her writing about his problematic behavior almost came across as making excuses for it. There’s one passage where she writes about the younger generation wanting to engage in activism and sublimating that desire through calling out their problematic bosses and I was like… uh people can both address structural inequality through broader actions and also call out harassment in the workplace? Basically, I feel she could’ve more directly just owned the fact that her friend engaged in problematic/harassing behavior instead of, in my view, dancing around it or overwriting about it. This could’ve even led to deeper exploration of what it’s like for privileged people (because her friend was a white man) to lose power or to get called out for harmful things they used to not get called out for.
Anyway, despite my quibbles about Grief is for People I loved the book and was deeply moved by it. Grief is so important to me personally and professionally and I’m heartened by this book’s addition to the grief canon.
I loved this book despite its imperfections. It contains powerful writing from Sloane Crosley about her grief process after one of her closest friends died by suicide. There’s so much sad honesty in these pages, about missing her friend, feeling angry at the world, about time passing and your person still being gone. I liked that she shines a spotlight on grieving a close friend given that grief in media is often portrayed centering a nuclear family member or romantic partner. Crosley’s prose overall impressed me – from the first page she jumps right into the action and I was hooked until the very end. I read this whole book in one afternoon.
There were a few passages in this book that took it to the five-star level for me, passages that captured grief in such a poignant and real way. There’s one passage about grief being like holding a vase and not having anywhere to put it down that made me cry. And the last few pages made me bawl. I loved these parts of the book and they felt so affirming to me in my own grief processes, that sometimes grief just is and you have to find a way to keep living even with the pain.
I want to be honest about what I perceive as some of the book’s faults, a minor one and then a more major one. First, I think at times Crosley’s prose read as a bit intellectualized to me, when she could’ve added even more detail about the friendship or her or her friend’s background. Second, I took some issue with how she wrote about Russell’s problematic behavior. I do think it’s important that she named the parts of her friend that weren’t ideal or that were problematic; I love not idealizing people who’ve passed away. Yet, some of her writing about his problematic behavior almost came across as making excuses for it. There’s one passage where she writes about the younger generation wanting to engage in activism and sublimating that desire through calling out their problematic bosses and I was like… uh people can both address structural inequality through broader actions and also call out harassment in the workplace? Basically, I feel she could’ve more directly just owned the fact that her friend engaged in problematic/harassing behavior instead of, in my view, dancing around it or overwriting about it. This could’ve even led to deeper exploration of what it’s like for privileged people (because her friend was a white man) to lose power or to get called out for harmful things they used to not get called out for.
Anyway, despite my quibbles about Grief is for People I loved the book and was deeply moved by it. Grief is so important to me personally and professionally and I’m heartened by this book’s addition to the grief canon.
March 5, 2024
Tangling With Grief
Author Sloane Crosley had her apartment broken into and lost jewelry, most of it relatively inexpensive, some of it tied to strong family sentiment. She took this hard; this was a violation. Her closest friend and former boss, book publicist Russell Perreault, was the shoulder to cry on and the one person she felt comfortable confiding in. His reassurance: “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “you can’t take it with you when you go.”
A few nights later he committed suicide.
Unexpectedly, she forges the two events together. If she can solve the robbery and recover the jewelry– somehow it can turn events back. The first portion of the book has her working around the ineffectiveness of the police and doing her own investigation. This all-consuming mission acts as a protective cloak hiding her denial over the sudden loss of her friend. She even fantasizes about Russell, in death, recovering the jewelry for her.
As the title states, “Grief is for People,” not possessions. As the jewelry issue fades, Sloane deals with the guilt, the post-traumatic stress disorder, and the thousands of questions this loss brings out. We get that she loved Richard dearly as a friend and desperately searches for a way to bring him back, that by her continued living she is leaving him behind. She does paint a loving picture of his quirkiness and we do get a sense of why he is so missed.
We are not smothered in a solemn gloomy mess, though. There is a lot of witty humor in this book, which is a good thing because it helps balance out an underlying anger Sloane expresses. “We have all committed the sin of not being able to bring him back.” This does not profess to be a self-help book– she actually mocks the rigidity of a lot of those and challenges the traditional ‘five stages of grief,’ they are not as neatly divided as put forward. Everyone wears their grief differently.
I was drawn to this book as a way to address some of my own recent grief issues, and, although the suicide focus is not something specifically relevant, a lot of chords were struck that rang true. I have just ordered Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking,” her moving account of how she attempted to function in her world soaked in grief. That book is referred to a number of times here and when I first read it I was not looking at these issues from the same vantage point.
Please don’t be put off by the darkness you may associate with the subject matter. This is an excellent exploration of a place we are all bound to dwell in at some point. Again, serious questions addressed with an appropriately humorous slant. It is the tragedy comedy tradition.
“I still want to know where everything I loved has gone and why.”
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, thank you to NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Author Sloane Crosley had her apartment broken into and lost jewelry, most of it relatively inexpensive, some of it tied to strong family sentiment. She took this hard; this was a violation. Her closest friend and former boss, book publicist Russell Perreault, was the shoulder to cry on and the one person she felt comfortable confiding in. His reassurance: “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “you can’t take it with you when you go.”
A few nights later he committed suicide.
Unexpectedly, she forges the two events together. If she can solve the robbery and recover the jewelry– somehow it can turn events back. The first portion of the book has her working around the ineffectiveness of the police and doing her own investigation. This all-consuming mission acts as a protective cloak hiding her denial over the sudden loss of her friend. She even fantasizes about Russell, in death, recovering the jewelry for her.
As the title states, “Grief is for People,” not possessions. As the jewelry issue fades, Sloane deals with the guilt, the post-traumatic stress disorder, and the thousands of questions this loss brings out. We get that she loved Richard dearly as a friend and desperately searches for a way to bring him back, that by her continued living she is leaving him behind. She does paint a loving picture of his quirkiness and we do get a sense of why he is so missed.
We are not smothered in a solemn gloomy mess, though. There is a lot of witty humor in this book, which is a good thing because it helps balance out an underlying anger Sloane expresses. “We have all committed the sin of not being able to bring him back.” This does not profess to be a self-help book– she actually mocks the rigidity of a lot of those and challenges the traditional ‘five stages of grief,’ they are not as neatly divided as put forward. Everyone wears their grief differently.
I was drawn to this book as a way to address some of my own recent grief issues, and, although the suicide focus is not something specifically relevant, a lot of chords were struck that rang true. I have just ordered Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking,” her moving account of how she attempted to function in her world soaked in grief. That book is referred to a number of times here and when I first read it I was not looking at these issues from the same vantage point.
Please don’t be put off by the darkness you may associate with the subject matter. This is an excellent exploration of a place we are all bound to dwell in at some point. Again, serious questions addressed with an appropriately humorous slant. It is the tragedy comedy tradition.
“I still want to know where everything I loved has gone and why.”
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, thank you to NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 9, 2024
so absolutely heartwrenching and beautifully written. sloane crosley's memoir is all in all, a deeply personal study on grief and loss. she grapples with the loss of her best friend and mentor while attempting to make sense of her feelings. how do you mourn the loss of a loved one? where do you place the love you had for them, and the grief you feel in its place?
sloane crosley is an extremely talented writer and her vulnerability and eloquence shine through in her new book. i know that i'll be coming back to reread this in a bit.
thank you fsg for the arc!
sloane crosley is an extremely talented writer and her vulnerability and eloquence shine through in her new book. i know that i'll be coming back to reread this in a bit.
thank you fsg for the arc!
March 3, 2024
Crosley's first memoir shows the author lost in grief after the suicide of her best friend and former colleague, Russell Perreault, who hanged himself in 2019. The book's strength is also its weakness: Crosley depicts the process of coming to terms with what happened as messy, fragmentary, and mysterious. Thus, it is rendered realistically from a psychological standpoint, but the construction diminishes the essayistic force when mundane scenes that suddenly acquire meaning and random connections the mind makes under such pressure get the same (and frequently more) weight than the parts that are interesting on the factual level.
The book rests and emotional movements, and it does so intentionally, meaning that the text is just as much about Crosley as about Perreault. But I wanted to hear more about Perreault's backstory and his possible motivations. I only briefly learnt how he, as a gay man, fled to NYC to live freely, how he did tend to not supplement, but replace his life with performance art, and, most interestingly, how he received regular complaints for his behavior at work because he was stuck in the old world where harsh, inappropriate words from older men were just accepted. I was wondering: How did Crosley feel about it, did they talk about it? Of course there can't be one definite answer as to why a person ends their life, but the neuralgic points remained too murky for me. I also loved the little bits and pieces about the publishing world, like the scandal around A Million Little Pieces, and I wanted more.
Still, Crosley remains a great writer, and it's intriguing to witness her trying to capture the unspeakable. The title hints at the fact that with a person, a whole world disappears, also a world of things, routines, events. There are many smart little throwaways in there, relating to the power of anger, for instance, or the existential loneliness that becomes graspable when you realize you can't fully know a person. I wished the text made more of it potential though.
The book rests and emotional movements, and it does so intentionally, meaning that the text is just as much about Crosley as about Perreault. But I wanted to hear more about Perreault's backstory and his possible motivations. I only briefly learnt how he, as a gay man, fled to NYC to live freely, how he did tend to not supplement, but replace his life with performance art, and, most interestingly, how he received regular complaints for his behavior at work because he was stuck in the old world where harsh, inappropriate words from older men were just accepted. I was wondering: How did Crosley feel about it, did they talk about it? Of course there can't be one definite answer as to why a person ends their life, but the neuralgic points remained too murky for me. I also loved the little bits and pieces about the publishing world, like the scandal around A Million Little Pieces, and I wanted more.
Still, Crosley remains a great writer, and it's intriguing to witness her trying to capture the unspeakable. The title hints at the fact that with a person, a whole world disappears, also a world of things, routines, events. There are many smart little throwaways in there, relating to the power of anger, for instance, or the existential loneliness that becomes graspable when you realize you can't fully know a person. I wished the text made more of it potential though.
March 16, 2024
One of the smartest, most beautiful, and most moving meditations on grief I've ever read. And, because this is Sloan Crosley telling the story, it's often very, very funny. (It is a rare essayist indeed who finds the humor in a burglary and a suicide, but Crosley is pretty much one of a kind.) I am going to be haunted (for a variety of reasons) by this memoir for a long time, and I am going to carry with me her descriptions of pool parties when people (once) were young and the vibrancy of publishing and New York when we were naive enough to believe that old age was deep in the future and sadness was just a blip. Everything about this book, right down to the sentence rhythms and the small asides, is a treasure.
February 28, 2024
As someone who rarely takes notes, underlines, or scribbles in the margins while reading, it is truly a testament to this book how much of it I ended up highlighting. So many passages and even sentences just stopped me in my tracks and had me reading them over and over again.
It feels almost impossible to weigh in on writing like this that is so raw and personal, but this book completely bowled me over and I will be thinking about it for a long time. I am such a fan of Crosley’s writing and her signature wit remains while she deftly recounts a time in her life that was marked by such devastating grief. I am honestly just so thankful that I was able to read this and find some comfort in how one can begin to deal with this specifically tragic and complicated type of loss.
I can’t recommend this highly enough.
Many thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
It feels almost impossible to weigh in on writing like this that is so raw and personal, but this book completely bowled me over and I will be thinking about it for a long time. I am such a fan of Crosley’s writing and her signature wit remains while she deftly recounts a time in her life that was marked by such devastating grief. I am honestly just so thankful that I was able to read this and find some comfort in how one can begin to deal with this specifically tragic and complicated type of loss.
I can’t recommend this highly enough.
Many thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
March 12, 2024
my emotions reading : 🥺🤣😓🥰🤧🫨
----
“I am waiting for the things I love to come back to me, to tell me they were only joking”
‘Grief Is For People’ by Sloane Crosley is not your typical grief story. Sloane takes us through a difficult period of loss in her life where she was burglarized and one month later lost her closest friend to suicide. These distinct events are smartly intertwined and told with her unique spin on the stages of her grief to create an emotional, funny, and honest story.
This isn’t a dark book. It feels weird to say I enjoyed it, yet I did. But not enjoyment the same way you enjoy a romantic beach read. It's enjoyable in the way of having a heavy and revealing heart-to-heart with a close friend.
Death is often spoken in hush tones. When mentioned many react as if you just said a huge disgusting spoiler to life despite it being one of the few facts of all our lives. But this fact doesn’t lessen the pain when it does happen, and it is a unique pain when someone does it of their own free will.
The humor in the story allows room for the complicated, sad and non-linear emotions that Sloane experiences to be felt without leaving you depressed. This wasn’t funny in a gimmicky way but in a helpful refresher that as much as life can be sad, it can also be funny. And people are not the summation of their final moments. Sloane's inclusion of the sliver of her moments shared with Russell and some of the moments due to her burglary added color to keep it from being a bleak story.
A necessary life reminder “it’s not such a nice world. Bad things happen. Sometimes they happen all at once”. But if you don’t sink, you find a way to swim.
I underlined many lines — some for their cleverness, humor, and relatability. Already an NYT Bestseller, and deservedly so.
Thank you FSG/MCD for the gifted copy! I’m now 2/2 with Sloane. The epigraph is a fitting note to end on...
“Either you jump out the window or you live”
----
“I am waiting for the things I love to come back to me, to tell me they were only joking”
‘Grief Is For People’ by Sloane Crosley is not your typical grief story. Sloane takes us through a difficult period of loss in her life where she was burglarized and one month later lost her closest friend to suicide. These distinct events are smartly intertwined and told with her unique spin on the stages of her grief to create an emotional, funny, and honest story.
This isn’t a dark book. It feels weird to say I enjoyed it, yet I did. But not enjoyment the same way you enjoy a romantic beach read. It's enjoyable in the way of having a heavy and revealing heart-to-heart with a close friend.
Death is often spoken in hush tones. When mentioned many react as if you just said a huge disgusting spoiler to life despite it being one of the few facts of all our lives. But this fact doesn’t lessen the pain when it does happen, and it is a unique pain when someone does it of their own free will.
The humor in the story allows room for the complicated, sad and non-linear emotions that Sloane experiences to be felt without leaving you depressed. This wasn’t funny in a gimmicky way but in a helpful refresher that as much as life can be sad, it can also be funny. And people are not the summation of their final moments. Sloane's inclusion of the sliver of her moments shared with Russell and some of the moments due to her burglary added color to keep it from being a bleak story.
A necessary life reminder “it’s not such a nice world. Bad things happen. Sometimes they happen all at once”. But if you don’t sink, you find a way to swim.
I underlined many lines — some for their cleverness, humor, and relatability. Already an NYT Bestseller, and deservedly so.
Thank you FSG/MCD for the gifted copy! I’m now 2/2 with Sloane. The epigraph is a fitting note to end on...
“Either you jump out the window or you live”
April 26, 2024
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live..." So begins the embraced-to-the-point-of-asphyxiation Didion passage from The White Album. The line continues with: "We look for the sermon in the suicide." If there is a sermon to be found in what happened to Russell, it's that he needed to be told stories in order to live. He approached his life through the lens of fiction. It was how he divided the world into villains and victims, how he diagnosed those closest to him, how he diagnosed himself. He was not the first gay man in New York with an affinity for performance, but his addiction served not as a supplement to life, but, too often, as replacement for a story of his own. It was his way of weaseling out of the arduous task of recognizing his own gray areas, by framing everything through Carmen and Tosca. To wit: He was never big on museums. All the humanity, none of the humans. Call him when the paintings start sleeping with each other.
I find myself once again in the arena of the buzzworthy, closing the cover of a book that splashed for a moment on the New York lists, twisted to a ripple and is rippling still. It is an examination of grief that does perhaps belong on a shelf aside Didion, McDonald, C.S. Lewis and the like - all ridiculously literate; prose rising from the shimmering depth like a spiraling string of bubbles in a flute of Dom on the very worst night of your life. You will get drunk on this.
Sloane Crosley, writer, New Yorker, close friend of Russell, came home one day to a burgled apartment. Part of what left in the backpack of the thief was her grandmother's amber necklace. In retrospect, I wonder that she never once alluded to the way lives were known to catch themselves in the molten heart of these stones; lethal mistakes preserved for eternity. Too obvious? Too cliche? Clearly too something some thirty days (to the day) later when Russell woke up and decided to take his own life. The analysis of loss begins.
It is a small book. A brief book. A sharp Manhattan blade of a thing. And so I must, having roots in those environs, leave you with a bit more of its Lebowitzian wit:
Once, near the end of my time at Vintage, an author canceled his tour on account of a broken foot. He assured me he'd do anything else I asked. But when the writing assignments rolled in, requests for a list of favorite films or a description of a memorable meal, he demurred. He demurred in all caps. TELL THEM I BROKE MY GODDAMN FOOT.
I typed: Your writing foot?
(And the glasses are clinking, can you hear?)
I find myself once again in the arena of the buzzworthy, closing the cover of a book that splashed for a moment on the New York lists, twisted to a ripple and is rippling still. It is an examination of grief that does perhaps belong on a shelf aside Didion, McDonald, C.S. Lewis and the like - all ridiculously literate; prose rising from the shimmering depth like a spiraling string of bubbles in a flute of Dom on the very worst night of your life. You will get drunk on this.
Sloane Crosley, writer, New Yorker, close friend of Russell, came home one day to a burgled apartment. Part of what left in the backpack of the thief was her grandmother's amber necklace. In retrospect, I wonder that she never once alluded to the way lives were known to catch themselves in the molten heart of these stones; lethal mistakes preserved for eternity. Too obvious? Too cliche? Clearly too something some thirty days (to the day) later when Russell woke up and decided to take his own life. The analysis of loss begins.
It is a small book. A brief book. A sharp Manhattan blade of a thing. And so I must, having roots in those environs, leave you with a bit more of its Lebowitzian wit:
Once, near the end of my time at Vintage, an author canceled his tour on account of a broken foot. He assured me he'd do anything else I asked. But when the writing assignments rolled in, requests for a list of favorite films or a description of a memorable meal, he demurred. He demurred in all caps. TELL THEM I BROKE MY GODDAMN FOOT.
I typed: Your writing foot?
(And the glasses are clinking, can you hear?)
March 12, 2024
Crosley has a magical way of sculpting language. It’s art, the way she expresses herself, and it’s an art I greatly appreciate. However, I did find she used language in a way that kept her emotionally distant from the subject at hand. She conveyed her thoughts beautifully, but I didn’t feel she let her heart show up very often. Perhaps it was just too soon for this. Perhaps it was too painful to really go there. All of that is fair.
Grief is extremely messy. Unless we leave this earth entirely too soon, we’re all bound to know its sloppy nature at some point. So I didn’t mind that this book was also a mess at first. It’s all over the place, bouncing off each thought like a bumper car, haphazardly making connections, sharing memories, and trying to make sense of it all. It was chaos, and so it was grief itself. I maintain that Crosley is a phenomenal writer, and Grief is for People was quite compelling early on, but I did find it to be a bit tedious as time went on. Perhaps this was because of what I mentioned in my first paragraph. Perhaps its meandering method contributed, as well.
It was nice to get to know Russell through Sloane Crosley. I’m unsure how to feel about an aspect she chose to share, though. I don’t want to spoil it or taint anyone else’s perspective. When we love someone, it can be easy to put them on a pedestal, even more so after they’ve died. Crosley did acknowledge her beloved friend’s flaws at times, mostly in a joking manner, and they were arguably presented as glamorous eccentricities. I liked her unconditional fondness, but I found her casual dismissiveness of problematic workplace behavior to be off putting. I appreciate her compassion for Russell’s own confusion, and I feel this addition gave readers another piece of understanding toward his emotional undoing, but I was uncomfortable and in disagreement with her stance.
I know many worry that they’re rating a person’s life when they rate a memoir. What we’re rating is our experience with the presentation. If someone told me their story, I certainly wouldn’t critique their delivery, but if they chose to have it published, monetizing on it - well, I think that is something else entirely. It’s brave, putting yourself out into the world so vulnerably, but I don’t feel readers should have to struggle over not loving every facet of the telling. I hope writing this book helped Crosley better process her loss, and I am glad she chose to share some of her insight with the rest of us.
3.5 stars
Grief is extremely messy. Unless we leave this earth entirely too soon, we’re all bound to know its sloppy nature at some point. So I didn’t mind that this book was also a mess at first. It’s all over the place, bouncing off each thought like a bumper car, haphazardly making connections, sharing memories, and trying to make sense of it all. It was chaos, and so it was grief itself. I maintain that Crosley is a phenomenal writer, and Grief is for People was quite compelling early on, but I did find it to be a bit tedious as time went on. Perhaps this was because of what I mentioned in my first paragraph. Perhaps its meandering method contributed, as well.
It was nice to get to know Russell through Sloane Crosley. I’m unsure how to feel about an aspect she chose to share, though. I don’t want to spoil it or taint anyone else’s perspective. When we love someone, it can be easy to put them on a pedestal, even more so after they’ve died. Crosley did acknowledge her beloved friend’s flaws at times, mostly in a joking manner, and they were arguably presented as glamorous eccentricities. I liked her unconditional fondness, but I found her casual dismissiveness of problematic workplace behavior to be off putting. I appreciate her compassion for Russell’s own confusion, and I feel this addition gave readers another piece of understanding toward his emotional undoing, but I was uncomfortable and in disagreement with her stance.
I know many worry that they’re rating a person’s life when they rate a memoir. What we’re rating is our experience with the presentation. If someone told me their story, I certainly wouldn’t critique their delivery, but if they chose to have it published, monetizing on it - well, I think that is something else entirely. It’s brave, putting yourself out into the world so vulnerably, but I don’t feel readers should have to struggle over not loving every facet of the telling. I hope writing this book helped Crosley better process her loss, and I am glad she chose to share some of her insight with the rest of us.
3.5 stars
May 28, 2024
Grief is a universal thing everyone goes through, but our experiences with it are all so different even if we can relate to each other in some way.
Sloane Crosley's memoir on grief is so poignant, relatable and unique in her own way. She manages to capture the experience perfectly in ways that'll take your breath away.
I know I'll be purchasing a physical copy of this to return to so I can underline passages that have resonated with me. Very grateful for books on grief because while we all experience it, the experience can be very isolating. Thank you Sloane Crosley for this, and to the publisher for the eARC.
Sloane Crosley's memoir on grief is so poignant, relatable and unique in her own way. She manages to capture the experience perfectly in ways that'll take your breath away.
I know I'll be purchasing a physical copy of this to return to so I can underline passages that have resonated with me. Very grateful for books on grief because while we all experience it, the experience can be very isolating. Thank you Sloane Crosley for this, and to the publisher for the eARC.
March 1, 2024
DNF @ 55%
I am no English major, I read for my own pleasure, and I did not enjoy this book.
1, the writing style just didn’t work for me
2, she spends most of the time talking about her missing jewellery. I’m sure it’s some great metaphor that’s related to grief but I just don’t care.
I am no English major, I read for my own pleasure, and I did not enjoy this book.
1, the writing style just didn’t work for me
2, she spends most of the time talking about her missing jewellery. I’m sure it’s some great metaphor that’s related to grief but I just don’t care.
July 19, 2024
with beautiful, intelligent writing, this sort-of memoir contains sloane crosley’s examination of grief, mainly through two events in her life: a burglary of jewellery from her new york apartment, and the suicide of her best friend and mentor. crosley grapples with how to cope with loss, and where you put all the love you have for someone once they’re gone. there was a standout passage about how grief feels like you’re holding a vase but have no where to put it down, and many other such moving passages; i underlined a lot in here.
April 14, 2024
I adored this exquisitely written grief memoir which is a deeply personal study on the author's loss following the suicide of her best friend. This account is split into 5 main chapters, with each section mirroring a classified stage of grief: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and afterward (instead of acceptance).
What makes this book so impressive is the author's brutal honesty in exploring her intimate feelings, and her ability to be simultaneously poignant and incredibly witty. Grief is for People is filled with sentences that will break your heart and have you laughing at the same time.
A short but unique and memorable read.
What makes this book so impressive is the author's brutal honesty in exploring her intimate feelings, and her ability to be simultaneously poignant and incredibly witty. Grief is for People is filled with sentences that will break your heart and have you laughing at the same time.
A short but unique and memorable read.
August 15, 2024
Review to come, but for now:
“I find I cannot have an interaction with a new person, a person you would’ve adored, without wondering if I am meeting the friend you needed. Is this the person for whom you would’ve lived just a little longer? Is this the person who would’ve shown you how to keep going? What if I was the wrong friend for you? What if we were all the wrong people for you?”
“I find I cannot have an interaction with a new person, a person you would’ve adored, without wondering if I am meeting the friend you needed. Is this the person for whom you would’ve lived just a little longer? Is this the person who would’ve shown you how to keep going? What if I was the wrong friend for you? What if we were all the wrong people for you?”
August 13, 2023
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. The author has always written such funny essays and novels, but is now hit with her New York City apartment being robbed and one of her best friends committing suicide, exactly one month apart. While her humor never leaves her, there are just some things that can’t be laughed away. She goes through the stages of grief and recalls fun tales of working for publicity for Vintage Books, where she and her friend used to work, as she plots to track down the jewelry that was stolen during the break in and then even has a world wide pandemic come to strand her in her apartment with her grief. She looks for her dead friend everywhere, as far away as Australia, and never finds him, but still learns to live with him.
June 8, 2024
Okay I've slept on it and I think 4.5 stars rounded up works.
I read some other reviews to get a sense of how others took this book. Some were critical of her using the burglary of her jewelry in the context of losing a dear friend by suicide. I'm not here to criticize those readers; to each their own, but I respectfully disagree. She lost material things that were precious to her (old, familial heirlooms) and she lost a human being. At no time does she equate the two. But because she did suffer those two losses in quick succession, she has to navigate both. Separately and together. She braids the disparate grief into one narrative without mashing them into one.
The phrase "grief is grief" irritates me. Having lost dear pets, grandparents to old age, a father to suicide, and a 10-year-old daughter to her heart defect, I can say that each grief is vastly different. But they all have to be navigated. Instead, I like the concept that grief expands to fit the container it's in, (even if that's essentially saying "grief is grief" but without the comparative, dismissive undertones.) It's a better way for me to understand that the grief someone has is the only one they know, and it matters. I thought using the burglary as a contextual entry into the more complicated grief of losing her friend was well done and honored both of her losses. (Not to mention, the sleuthing she does to retrieve some of her pieces was first-rate crime thriller. This woman's got some serious cajones.)
As for the actual writing, this author writes as if she has a million words in her brain and she must get them all out as fast as possible. This isn't a criticism, however, since when they come out, she organizes them into sharp, funny, insightful sentences that tell us more about her than they do the who/what/when of what she's telling. She's obviously incredibly intelligent and I loved being allowed into her story.
I read some other reviews to get a sense of how others took this book. Some were critical of her using the burglary of her jewelry in the context of losing a dear friend by suicide. I'm not here to criticize those readers; to each their own, but I respectfully disagree. She lost material things that were precious to her (old, familial heirlooms) and she lost a human being. At no time does she equate the two. But because she did suffer those two losses in quick succession, she has to navigate both. Separately and together. She braids the disparate grief into one narrative without mashing them into one.
The phrase "grief is grief" irritates me. Having lost dear pets, grandparents to old age, a father to suicide, and a 10-year-old daughter to her heart defect, I can say that each grief is vastly different. But they all have to be navigated. Instead, I like the concept that grief expands to fit the container it's in, (even if that's essentially saying "grief is grief" but without the comparative, dismissive undertones.) It's a better way for me to understand that the grief someone has is the only one they know, and it matters. I thought using the burglary as a contextual entry into the more complicated grief of losing her friend was well done and honored both of her losses. (Not to mention, the sleuthing she does to retrieve some of her pieces was first-rate crime thriller. This woman's got some serious cajones.)
As for the actual writing, this author writes as if she has a million words in her brain and she must get them all out as fast as possible. This isn't a criticism, however, since when they come out, she organizes them into sharp, funny, insightful sentences that tell us more about her than they do the who/what/when of what she's telling. She's obviously incredibly intelligent and I loved being allowed into her story.
August 17, 2024
All deaths are hard on us. I believe that. Even people who lack moral fiber or general human connection are bound to be haunted in some fashion. I might be wrong about that, but as a general statement, grieving is something I believe is part of being human. Suicide is a different form of torture. Questions are always lingering, and it feels like the what if’s are even heavier. I’m sorry for what the author has had to endure. The only thing I know about grief is my own, and I’ve learned two things: 1, it’s ok not to be ok, 2, grief will always be with me, but living eventually gets easier. I hope it gets easier for her too. This book definitely brought up some of my own, but grown is an old friend I now welcome back. It’s like the people I mourn have come back to visit with me. So for me, this book was a comfort.
August 18, 2023
There are books whose titles are drawn from the text; you don't know when you'll encounter it until you get there and then tears spring to your eyes when you do. This is one (No One is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood is another).
This book is not a fast read, although it's short, nor is it an easy read. Some of the sentences felt they should have been read aloud first, as a test of their readability, but you can understand why they weren't. It really must have been hard to write this. You can tell she really loved him.
My gratitude to NetGalley for allowing me access to an electronic ARC in exchange for this honest review.
This book is not a fast read, although it's short, nor is it an easy read. Some of the sentences felt they should have been read aloud first, as a test of their readability, but you can understand why they weren't. It really must have been hard to write this. You can tell she really loved him.
My gratitude to NetGalley for allowing me access to an electronic ARC in exchange for this honest review.
December 19, 2023
SPRINT DO NOT RUN, i wish six stars was an option. by far the best thing i read this year
April 8, 2024
A discursive memoir/essay in which Crosley attempts to come to terms with and make sense of the death by suicide of her dearest friend, the man who had started as her mentor and boss at publishing house Vintage. It’s a funny, loving but unvarnished portrait of the man and of their friendship; I felt both that I got a pretty good sense of the person he was and of how much he meant to the author and the huge hole left in her life by his absence. She offers many interesting and touching reflections about her emotions surrounding the death. What worked less well for me was the author’s attempt to see connective ripples between her friend’s death/absence and the break-in and theft of her jewelry exactly one month before his suicide. That didn’t really hit the mark for me and felt a bit like padding.
March 15, 2024
This book is an incoherent mess. The author rambles and rants about her fixation on the burglary of jewelry that she inherited from her grandmother and never wore, and efforts to find and retrieve it, and her obsession with the death by suicide of a former supervisor, colleague and friend. The later borders on mental illness.
The book swings endlessly from one to another for no apparent reason with some casual links between them.
Within the text are sections such as her biography of her friend, and the early portion of her segment on the Covid shutdown, that standing alone would have made good extended magazine essays. However, jumbled together they make little or no sense other than to make the reader think that the author is in serious need of help from a mental health professional, and the book requires an editor.
The book swings endlessly from one to another for no apparent reason with some casual links between them.
Within the text are sections such as her biography of her friend, and the early portion of her segment on the Covid shutdown, that standing alone would have made good extended magazine essays. However, jumbled together they make little or no sense other than to make the reader think that the author is in serious need of help from a mental health professional, and the book requires an editor.
December 27, 2023
Tense, visceral, and completely gripping.
I was especially enthralled during the first half when we learn about Sloane’s relationship with Russell and witness Sloane’s determination to find out who stole her jewelry and how she could possibly get it back. This was my first read by this author and I enjoyed her writing style and storytelling abilities - she infuses humor into this deeply sad yet celebratory account of her friendship with Russell.
Thank you very much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.
I was especially enthralled during the first half when we learn about Sloane’s relationship with Russell and witness Sloane’s determination to find out who stole her jewelry and how she could possibly get it back. This was my first read by this author and I enjoyed her writing style and storytelling abilities - she infuses humor into this deeply sad yet celebratory account of her friendship with Russell.
Thank you very much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.
April 8, 2024
I always feel bad giving a low rating to memoirs, especially one with such a heartbreaking subject, but I just couldn’t connect to this one. I was hoping to find something cathartic in the experience of reading it, but I found it too disjointed. Plus I’ll pretty much always knock off a star for any book, TV show, or movie that unironically believes New York City is the most special and unique and magical and best on earth, as are all its inhabitants. The pandemic did also happen in other places, actually.
March 9, 2024
Major thanks to NetGalley and MCD for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:
If Nora Ephron wrote Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.
When we talk about grief, we talk about Didion's more personal works. Crosley references a book club on reading Didion:
"..𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳.. 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯’𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥. 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺, 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺, 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘪𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘪𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 '𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨' 𝘩𝘦𝘳."
Didion means a great deal to Crosley with the press work at Vintage and because of the talk they shared for the New York Public Library.
When we lose someone, I think we all run to Didion. Because she was always so articulate about how she dealt with grief. And I honestly feel bad for those who don't see it.
If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t. If you know, you know. And if you don’t know like I honestly feel bad for you. I cannot explain it. I don’t have the vocabulary to sit here and explain it. You get the vibe or you don’t get the vibe.
We all deal with grief differently, and here Crosley creates emotional balance in sadness and humor to levy out the emotional drainage that is the grieving process. With so much heart, so much yearning, I can already imagine the endless pages that went on and on about how much she loved her friend, how much of a character he was, how much he meant to her, the world, and the way the world moves. How do we conceive a world without the people we love the most?
In jewel heist and hot insider tea in the publishing-sphere, Crosley creates an honest account of all the ways the heart aches when we lose a great love like this.
She just gets it. The pain. How much it hurts. The blue that comes after. The days. Long ass days. But also the bursts of humor that need to happen. Humor happens to edit down on the big blue. Because what does Didion say about blue nights? Something about the dying of the brightness? Crosley, ten-fold forward, is after the opposite, the dying of the brightness.
The living of the brightness.
I'll end with this Didion reference from the book:
"𝘐𝘯 The Year of Magical Thinking, 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴: '𝘈 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺.' 𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶."
If Nora Ephron wrote Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.
When we talk about grief, we talk about Didion's more personal works. Crosley references a book club on reading Didion:
"..𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳.. 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯’𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥. 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺, 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺, 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘪𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘪𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 '𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨' 𝘩𝘦𝘳."
Didion means a great deal to Crosley with the press work at Vintage and because of the talk they shared for the New York Public Library.
When we lose someone, I think we all run to Didion. Because she was always so articulate about how she dealt with grief. And I honestly feel bad for those who don't see it.
If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t. If you know, you know. And if you don’t know like I honestly feel bad for you. I cannot explain it. I don’t have the vocabulary to sit here and explain it. You get the vibe or you don’t get the vibe.
We all deal with grief differently, and here Crosley creates emotional balance in sadness and humor to levy out the emotional drainage that is the grieving process. With so much heart, so much yearning, I can already imagine the endless pages that went on and on about how much she loved her friend, how much of a character he was, how much he meant to her, the world, and the way the world moves. How do we conceive a world without the people we love the most?
In jewel heist and hot insider tea in the publishing-sphere, Crosley creates an honest account of all the ways the heart aches when we lose a great love like this.
She just gets it. The pain. How much it hurts. The blue that comes after. The days. Long ass days. But also the bursts of humor that need to happen. Humor happens to edit down on the big blue. Because what does Didion say about blue nights? Something about the dying of the brightness? Crosley, ten-fold forward, is after the opposite, the dying of the brightness.
The living of the brightness.
I'll end with this Didion reference from the book:
"𝘐𝘯 The Year of Magical Thinking, 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴: '𝘈 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺.' 𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶."
February 11, 2024
“I am waiting for the things I love to come back to me, to tell me they were only joking.
Grief is for people, not things.”
How do we engage with the world when our people are no longer a part of it? Crosley grapples with life after the death of her best friend, Russell. She reminisces and through her often funny stories we come to know Russell, his quirks and idiosyncrasies, but not the why of his death. That’s the thing though. We can’t always know and so we search for meaning in our memories, in every bit of dialogue exchanged and ask ourselves, did we miss the signs?
In Grief is for People, Crosley doesn’t just focus on her personal grief but engages with the collective sadness around events such as 9/11 and the pandemic. That life limps inevitably onward and we eventually overtake the ones who left us behind.
I am 53 years old this month and my best friend will remain forever 25. And that’s a very sad thing indeed.
Many thanks to MCD/FSG/Serpents Tail and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Grief is for people, not things.”
How do we engage with the world when our people are no longer a part of it? Crosley grapples with life after the death of her best friend, Russell. She reminisces and through her often funny stories we come to know Russell, his quirks and idiosyncrasies, but not the why of his death. That’s the thing though. We can’t always know and so we search for meaning in our memories, in every bit of dialogue exchanged and ask ourselves, did we miss the signs?
In Grief is for People, Crosley doesn’t just focus on her personal grief but engages with the collective sadness around events such as 9/11 and the pandemic. That life limps inevitably onward and we eventually overtake the ones who left us behind.
I am 53 years old this month and my best friend will remain forever 25. And that’s a very sad thing indeed.
Many thanks to MCD/FSG/Serpents Tail and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
July 15, 2024
grief is for people is a sharply written exploration of the complexity of the author’s grief surrounding the suicide of her best friend and mentor, russell. the memoir is set against the backdrop of a burglary that occurred at crosley’s apartment shortly before russell passed away. the later parts of the book also incorporate the loss that the pandemic brought to the world and, more specifically, to new york city.
while i haven’t been through something as devastating and unexpected as what was described in this book, the way crosley writes about it brings her emotions to life for the reader without verging on being overwritten. she portrays russell as a full human being - she doesn’t sugarcoat her description of his flaws, but still makes obvious the love and respect she has for him. i thought the burglary was really effective as a way to frame the narrative because of how it sets the scene for the lack of security and loss that is to come. crosley grapples with her sadness over the loss of her jewelry and uses her attempts to recover it as a way to exert some sort of control over her situation and to assure herself that things will be okay. it made for an insightful look into our attachments not only to people, but to physical possessions and the memories they carry with them.
i really loved the inside look at russell and sloane’s time spent working together as book publicists. super interesting to hear behind the scenes stories about the publishing industry and the dynamic that they had while working together. i also thought that the pandemic writing was done well and didn’t overshadow the main narrative with russell. crosley used the pandemic as a vehicle to explore russell’s struggles with mental health and how the pandemic would’ve most likely impacted him, so it isn’t a full account of pandemic life.
i picked this up after seeing so many people whose opinions i trust really enjoy it, and i was not disappointed. i read it over the course of an afternoon which is always a good sign that something has gripped me. this was my first time reading anything from sloane crosley and i’ll definitely be checking out her other nonfiction! 4.5 stars from me!
while i haven’t been through something as devastating and unexpected as what was described in this book, the way crosley writes about it brings her emotions to life for the reader without verging on being overwritten. she portrays russell as a full human being - she doesn’t sugarcoat her description of his flaws, but still makes obvious the love and respect she has for him. i thought the burglary was really effective as a way to frame the narrative because of how it sets the scene for the lack of security and loss that is to come. crosley grapples with her sadness over the loss of her jewelry and uses her attempts to recover it as a way to exert some sort of control over her situation and to assure herself that things will be okay. it made for an insightful look into our attachments not only to people, but to physical possessions and the memories they carry with them.
i really loved the inside look at russell and sloane’s time spent working together as book publicists. super interesting to hear behind the scenes stories about the publishing industry and the dynamic that they had while working together. i also thought that the pandemic writing was done well and didn’t overshadow the main narrative with russell. crosley used the pandemic as a vehicle to explore russell’s struggles with mental health and how the pandemic would’ve most likely impacted him, so it isn’t a full account of pandemic life.
i picked this up after seeing so many people whose opinions i trust really enjoy it, and i was not disappointed. i read it over the course of an afternoon which is always a good sign that something has gripped me. this was my first time reading anything from sloane crosley and i’ll definitely be checking out her other nonfiction! 4.5 stars from me!
April 13, 2024
I guess it's a bit closer to 4 than to 5 stars, but I do want to highlight this book.
Autofiction with the dark wit of Geoff Dyer, David Sedaris, Nora Ephron and the depth of Vivian Gornick and Annie Dillard.
About New York, the publishing world, friendship and -of course- grief. Lot's of phrases to mark and quote!
Autofiction with the dark wit of Geoff Dyer, David Sedaris, Nora Ephron and the depth of Vivian Gornick and Annie Dillard.
About New York, the publishing world, friendship and -of course- grief. Lot's of phrases to mark and quote!
July 17, 2024
I am at a loss for words to describe how this book made me feel. It is a lovely homage to a great friendship, written beautifully in an honest and vulnerable way, balanced out with the humor Sloane Crosley has made a signature of hers. I listened to this one on audiobook, narrated by the author, which made this feel so much more personal. I felt as if I was listening to Sloane telling me all these thoughts in her head over a glass of wine. I loved how she used a robbery as a metaphor, a way to better explain how losing her best friend made her feel. Still processing this book, will definitely want to re-read this one with a physical copy.
March 1, 2024
It’s almost unutterably surreal to read a book about the death of someone you knew and worked with for five years, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, but I’m really glad I did. This book is raw and wry and angry and beautiful. Crosley captured Russell’s voice so perfectly and is so insightful and disarming about grief.
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