This book is very well-written, featuring realistic characters pushed to emotional extremes as they cope with a loss and learn about each other. This book can be poignant at moments, and it is a tear-jerker. Very well-done. I received this book for free from Goodreads Firstreads Giveaways. ( )

Dit is zo'n boek waarbij ik van te voren dacht het prachtig te vinden. Maar ik vond het vooral langdradig. Het verhaal wordt door verschillende mensen verteld/bezien. Het speelt zich in verschillende tijden af. En hoewel de Engelstalige titel prachtig klinkt, vond ik het verhaal ontzetten voorspelbaar en vrij leeg. Er zaten soms best mooie beschrijvingen tussen, maar het bleef allemaal vooral erg vlak. Ik had gehoopt op meer. ( )

An exploration of the ramifications of a tragedy upon a whole family told from each member's point of view. ( )

You'd think I would know from the title that this book was going to be a depressing affair. "Depressing affair" does not quite cover it.

Despite the inherent tragedies this novel discloses, I liked it. Just not that much to overlook the sadness and weird 6 train tears I shed a various times during the book. The only time 6 train tears are appropriate is when finishing Just Kids by Patti Smith. Otherwise, like in this situation, they are unacceptable. ( )

The problem with having a near-brilliant first five pages is that the rest of the book might not live up to it. The first five pages of this book are devastating--it really is the fastest a book has ever made me cry--and beautiful and real. But much of the rest of the book doesn't live up to it. I loved Ricky, but we don't spend much time with her; the author chooses instead to give us pages and pages with her husband John, her children Paul and Biscuit (the cutesy nickname makes me wince, but then one of my children goes by Jibbitz at home, so who am I to judge?), John's grown daughter Jess, a random passerby named Gordie. The diffuse focus weakens the book.

I really just did not give a rat's ass about Gordie. Sorry. Ultimately what I did care about was Ricky and John and their marriage. The writing of the marriage, of the various ways they fail each other, was very well-done and the best part of the book. I wish there had been more of it! The ending of the book works, despite the self-consciously literary way in which it's written. ( )

The two children were the most interesting and empathetic characters in this, I thought. The book seemed influenced by James salter, but not as good. ( )

The writing in this book could be absolutely delightful, worthy of the Women's Prize longlist recognition, but some of the choices the author made about the direction of the plot or development of the characters seemed too out of place for me to thoroughly enjoy the writing itself. I really wanted to like this book, but I really needed it to touch me more than it did. I spent so much time being frustrated about the story that I couldn't settle into the flow of writing. A pity, since it really could have pulled me in. I wanted so much to feel more of this book than I could. That is either my preferences or frustrations talking and doesn't make for a good review, but that is really all I feel I can put here. ( )

The problem with having a near-brilliant first five pages is that the rest of the book might not live up to it. The first five pages of this book are devastating--it really is the fastest a book has ever made me cry--and beautiful and real. But much of the rest of the book doesn't live up to it. I loved Ricky, but we don't spend much time with her; the author chooses instead to give us pages and pages with her husband John, her children Paul and Biscuit (the cutesy nickname makes me wince, but then one of my children goes by Jibbitz at home, so who am I to judge?), John's grown daughter Jess, a random passerby named Gordie. The diffuse focus weakens the book.

I really just did not give a rat's ass about Gordie. Sorry. Ultimately what I did care about was Ricky and John and their marriage. The writing of the marriage, of the various ways they fail each other, was very well-done and the best part of the book. I wish there had been more of it! The ending of the book works, despite the self-consciously literary way in which it's written. ( )

The two children were the most interesting and empathetic characters in this, I thought. The book seemed influenced by James salter, but not as good. ( )

The two children were the most interesting and empathetic characters in this, I thought. The book seemed influenced by James salter, but not as good. ( )

Meditative, intricate look at one family's season of grief following the death of their infant child/sibling. It is a novel where the truth is thought and shown but not spoken aloud, as is true in many families. The addition of a different family member visiting from afar gives momentum and focus to this very interior story. Lovely writing and very real characters. ( )

Based on what I had read about this I expected to like it a great deal more than I did. In truth this properly lies between a 2 and 3 star for me. Cohen writes beautifully, but she writes about nothing very interesting. What seems to be advanced as profound observation is simply not. It is like a really long story from a participant in a bereavement support group. None of it is very enlightening, but it is probably comforting to the other people sitting around the circle to realize they are not alone. ( )

"Come un petalo bianco d'estate" è un libro pieno di speranza e di voglia di voltare pagina. E' un libro che racconta il viaggio introspettivo di una famiglia tipica americana, che solo un anno prima ha avuto a che fare con un grande lutto.
Ricky, è la madre in questa famiglia a pezzi, che ha dovuto prendere una grande decisione e sulla quale grava il peso di quella scelta.
John, il papà,sommerso dal lavoro; Paul, il figlio ribelle adolescente, chiuso in se stesso; e Bisquit, la più piccola di casa: ognuno affronta il lutto a modo suo.
Ma degli incontri inattesi possono cambiare in qualche modo le loro vite.
Ho trovato la narrazione, all'inizio molto promettente, ma con l'andare avanti, è come decaduto. Le premesse erano molto buone ed ero molto invogliata anche dalla trama. Ma non ho trovato quella scintilla che mi fa battere il cuore, e neanche quel legame che di solito instauro con i personaggi, anche se sono sempre rimasta invogliata ad arrivare al finale del libro. E' solo che è stato un po' lento.
Probabilmente è stata una mia impressione perchè è stato un libro molto apprezzato e vincitore di molti premi della critica, ma, come tutti sappiamo, ogni libro prende e colpisce in modo diverso ogni lettore.
In conclusione, è un libro che va letto con molta attenzione, dato che parla di un argomento molto toccante come il lutto,k e per immagazzinarlo ci vuole del tempo. Magari, tra qualche giorno, avrò scoperto nuovi lati del libro che non avevo notato prima!
( )

This is a story about the Ryrie family, which is composed of mother and father Ricky and John and kids Paul, Biscuit and Jessica, along with sort of about a young man named Gordie who becomes entangled with this family.

There were certain parts that I liked a great deal and that had a great deal of emotional truth in them, such as Jessica's feeling of floating along, with no tether, after graduating from college and Ricky and John's delicate balancing act throughout their marriage to account for various indiscretions. I also really liked the character of Biscuit, who is a young girl who thinks too much and gets a bit lost in the shuffle of her busy family.

I feel like the end of the book, where the author attempts to paste on a message of universalness in a very literal fashion, was unnecessary and took away from the more touching aspects of the story.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about family dramas and anyone who is interested in how different people deal with grief. ( )

Excellent novel, beautifully written. ( )

despite the uniqueness of the circumstances of the cast of characters, this story goes to the universality of human emotions and interactions - heart wrenching sad at times but so well written I had to finish the book ( )

I am still not sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand, I liked the premise but I feel like the execution got lost somewhere. In fact, I think there may be the start of a couple of novels in this book but this book never seemed to finish. I didn't feel like I got to really know any of the characters. ( )

The Grief of Others is about the Ryrie family: husband and father John, wife and mother Ricky (Erica), son and brother Paul, daughter and sister Biscuit (Elizabeth). In their own separate ways, the Ryries are grieving for the baby lost a year ago: Simon Isaac, born with a condition "incompatible with life," lived only 57 hours.

Into this grief-fractured family enter Jess - John's daughter with another woman, before he met Ricky - and Gordie, whose Newfoundland Ebie knocks Biscuit into the Hudson River in a flawed rescue attempt. Gordie, too, is grieving, for the death of his father, Will. He forms a bond with Jess, who is several weeks pregnant. Other than Gordie and Jess' growing friendship, there is little communication between family members: each inhabits their own private world, incomprehensible to the others. Eventually, however, these barriers break down.

Most of the story takes place in the present ("This Year"), though the prologue takes place "Last Year" and some of the story occurs "Eight Years Ago." This transitioning in time is not jarring, however. In fact, Cohen's writing is gorgeous and true, quietly spectacular. The Grief of Others has much in common with Mark Haddon's The Red House and Joshua Henkin's The World Without You, but I think this is the best of the three.

Quotes:

Was it possible to reach someone whose sorrow you didn't acknowledge, let alone understand? (117)

But when was it love's business to be rational? (127)

...she'd begged his forgiveness, not seeming to understand that this was a matter beyond his control. It made as much sense as begging for someone to love you. As though it were something you could choose. (145)

Also this: how many are dying right now, at this moment, the whole world over? For just a moment his mind is able to grasp it, the existence of a vast, invisible, yet utterly real community of the dying, and then, it follows, another composed of the suffering, and one of the ecstatic and one of the healing, and one of those in despair and one of those in wonder. Somewhere on this earth, too, there are others like him, others paused at this very moment in contemplation by an open doorway. For just a moment he is able to grasp the perfect truth of this. Then it is gone.
And he perceives that it will always be this complicated, that life will always contain such quicksilver changes, that it is composed of quicksilver changes, those mercurial shifts between understanding and loss of understanding, longing and gratitude, imprecation and blessing. He stands close to the night, listening for a splash, and thinks he has never felt so unafflicted in all his life, so wholly unmarked by fear. (288-289)

Gordie held his arms apart as though someone had asked him roughly how big a Chihuahua was, a gesture Jess somehow understood was meant to initiate a hug. (357)

They could not see her, a speck on the bench on the opposite shore, but she was here, nevertheless; and she, too, was traveling, in slower fashion, following a kind of coastline, too, as faithfully and inexorably as they. It would lead somewhere else. Someday she would be someone else....As distant to her present self as were the strangers on that train. That truth, too, was lonely and terrible. (361) ( )

The prologue to THE GUILT OF OTHERS is exquisitely poignant: a mother refusing to let go her new born baby whose congenital birth defects were discovered in the womb when the foetus was five months. The baby’s birth and death brings to the surface molten cracks in the Ryrie family that have simmered unacknowledged for years.

The story moves back and forth between John and Ricky Ryrie, their children Paul and Biscuit, John’s pregnant eldest daughter from a previous relationship, Jess, and a stranger, Gordie. Binding them all together, as most of humanity is bound together, are the threads of birth and death.

Cohen’s compassionate prose slides easily between the year since the baby was born and died, and the first time Jess met her biological father. In all the Ryrie’s memories, that long ago holiday was a golden time, a time of perfect happiness in which the possibility of death, while a real threat (a single mother drowns in the lake, leaving behind two orphaned children) cannot touch them.

But death – in the form of baby Simon – does touch the family and, in doing so, cracks their fears and flaws, their wounds and worries, wide open. The underlying question in the story is whether that perfect holiday was an illusion. Or was the love underpinning it real enough to salvage the family from their current crisis of grief and pain?

The last chapter, however, was a bit strange: there were a few questions raised (did John sleep with Madeleine? Were Gordie’s father’s dioramas put on show?) that were dealt with tangentially, as the story shifted from the personal details of a family we, as readers, have come to know intimately, to a more universal viewpoint. I suggest that this was an attempt to link the personal with the collective; to show that all the joys and sorrows of life are shared not only by individual families, but by all people, loved ones and strangers alike. For me, though, while the philosophy behind the chapter was interesting and well-written, the abrupt change of style was confusing, pulling me out of my involvement with the Ryries, rather than leaving me with a sense of restoration and completion.

Overall, though, THE GUILT OF OTHERS is a tender and moving story, beautifully written and held together with the lightest of touches ( )

Cohen is a masterful writer. The crafting of this novel is almost poetic at times. I greatly enjoyed her gift of description. An author with such a talent can pull the reader in, making one feel like they are experiencing the novel first hand.

However, with this novel I found the character development to be lacking and was unable to experience the depth of emotions for this family and their plight that I know Cohen was hoping to achieve. When the mother in the novel finds herself pregnant with a child that has life-prohibitive deformities but chooses to keep that knowledge to herself for the second half of the pregnancy, we are not given enough information to understand and sympathize with her choice. Other family dynamics are likewise not as developed as I would have hoped.

Cohen masterful utilization of language does compel me to read other of her novels. ( )

This book deals with each family member’s reaction to the loss of an infant 57 hours after his birth. Each of the characters are very well developed – John and Ricky are the parents, Biscuit (Elizabeth) and Paul are the other two children, and Jess is John’s daughter from a teenage affair. At times the book is overly narrative, and Ricky is a bit difficult to like. Overall a good read. ( )

The Grief of Others is a well written story about the loss of an infant. The author does a wonderful job of developing each character. This allows the reader to get a feel for how each member of this family dealt with the loss. I found the story to be rather slow moving at times and I wasn’t always a fan of the parents, John and Ricky. ( )

Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2012/05/grief-of-others.html

The Grief of Others begins with a devastating event - the death of an infant only a few hours old. The baby dies in the arms of its mother. The death is not a surprise. Based on prenatal testing, the mother knew the child would not live. Yet, the devastation of the loss is no less for having known it was coming. The rest of the story then tells of the family as they come to grips with this loss and the secrets that emerge in the process.

The story weaves back and forth across time - from immediately following the death to a year or so later. The story also weaves back and forth between the family members - John (the father), Ricky (the mother), and the siblings Biscuit and Paul. In addition, we hear the stories of Jess, John's daughter from an earlier relationship, and the Gordie, a young man who is reeling from his own losses and gets involved with this family.

The first few pages of this book literally take your breath away. They paint a heart wrenching picture of a mother who holds her infant from his birth through the fifty some hours of his life until his death. The intensity of the emotions conveyed stays with me well after I have put the book down.

Unfortunately, I don't think there was any way possible for the rest of the book to live up to that opening. I found the rest of the book rather difficult to read. The writing style focused a lot on description. It sort of makes sense because grieving can be such a solitary process and very much an internal process. With each chapter focused on a different character, the book isolated that character's experience. However, it just made for difficult reading. It created a somewhat detached or removed feeling to the book which did not match the intensity of the opening.

For the opening few pages though, I will always remember this book. ( )

This novel started very beautifully and weaved artfully the stories of six characters and their various responses to grief, from death and also, from abandonment and loss (as done to each other). The writing is excellent and the observations about human beings quite astute, from the youngest character, Biscuit, who is ten, to the quietly brooding and perpetually dissatisfied parents, Ricky and John. In fact, it got a bit tedious in spots and the parents continually choose to be miserable and never seem to appreciate what they do have. They obsess about each other and their fractured marriage ad nauseum. I wanted to shake them and/or sit them down for a serious round of therapy to get over themselves. However, this is realistic, just a bit of a chore in spots to read. Cohen renders children and teenagers especially well, with grace and that confused thing that is adolescence. Those characters (Biscuit, Paul, Gordie and Jessica) were entirely more pleasant to read about, and care about. The parents were very, very hard to like. Anyway, the only real issue I have with novel was the ending, egads, it was tacked on, obtuse and full of those weird unanswerable questions to, I presume, me, the reader. It was out of place and refused to let the story end naturally as it tried to make a global point about everyone and everything. Totally unnecessary. I would have rated this book way higher without the bizarre ending. Still, recommended, but tepidly. I do see why it was long listed for the 2012 Orange Prize though, it is beautiful and very perceptive in many spots. ( )