I have had both of these books on my shelf for so, so long. I wish I hadn’t waited. Both glorious in their own way.
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
This extraordinary novella – part fable, part poetry – explores grief through the eyes of three ‘characters’ – a father, his two sons (known as ‘the boys’), and Crow. The boys’ mother died suddenly, an accident in their flat, and the family are left, untethered, grappling with their loss.
Crow arrives, all black feathers and noise – a comfort, a babysitter, a motivator, a joker, a distractor. This self-described sentimental bird is a symbol of grief, and he vows to stay with the family for as long as they need.
…the whole place was heavy mourning, every surface dead Mum, every crayon, tractor, coat, welly, covered in a film of grief.
Significantly, the father is a Ted Hughes scholar. I’m certain that if I was intimately familiar with Hughes’s work, specifically Crow, this slim volume would have had many additional layers of meaning. However, I’m not but that didn’t detract from Porter’s deeply moving story.
Porter has captured many facets of grieving with an economy of words and observations that cut to the heart. In the beginning the father speaks of ‘…waiting for any kind of structured feeling to emerge from the organisational fakery of my days…’ and the constant stream of well-meaning visitors –
The doorbell rang and I braced myself for more kindness. Another lasagne, some books, a cuddle… Of course, I was becoming an expert in the behaviour of orbiting grievers. Being at the epicentre grants a curiously anthropological awareness of everybody else; the overwhelmeds, the affectedly lackadaisicals, the nothing so fars, the overstayers, the new best friends of hers…
But it was the bits from the perspective of the boys that shattered me. Beginning with their awareness that everything had changed –
We guessed and understood that this was a new life and Dad was a different type of Dad now and we were different boys, we were brave new boys without a Mum.
And then, as the reality of the loss takes hold –
Various things slipped. We pissed on the seat. We never shut drawers. We did these things to miss her, to keep wanting her.
This is a remarkable book. The three first-person perspectives demonstrate the different approaches to dealing with death, as well as showing that ‘…grief is a long-term project‘. But it also provides something else – the story ends with calm: Crow no longer reigns, the family unit does. The boys grow into men, and their Mum is ever-present, as you would expect.
We seem to take it in ten-year turns to be defined by it, sizeable chunks of cracking on, then great sink-holes of melancholy. … We were careful to age her, never trap her. Careful to name her Granny, when Dad became Grandpa.
We hope she likes us.
5/5
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
If I started quoting favourite or important or relevant lines from Ephron’s essays on ageing, I’d virtually be reproducing the whole book. Instead, all you need to know is this: Ephron is wise, funny, blunt and this is the kind of book I ought to re-read every year to remind myself of the importance of personal boundaries and the law of ‘But I Like It‘ (I attribute this law to Samantha Irby but it’s also the guts of I Feel Bad About My Neck).
I can’t believe how real life never lets you down. I can’t understand why anyone would write fiction when what actually happens is amazing.
I can’t believe that Ephron turns observations about Mandarin collars, handbags, cooking complicated dishes, the ’empty nest’ and hair dye into something existential. Marvelous.
4.5/5