Sparrow: A Book of Life and Death and Life

From the author of The Cure for Sorrow, a luminous book about the endurance of love in the presence of grief. "Who am I, when the person who saw and knew me best in all the world is gone from this world?" Jan Richardson's question lies at the heart of Sparrow, a book that began as notes written to her husband, the singer/songwriter Garrison Doles, while keeping vigil for him in the hospital after a disastrous surgery just a few years into their marriage.Six months after Garrison's death, Jan returned to those notes and began to write again. The pages grew into an unexpected conversation as she worked to make a new life. Here, Jan invites us into that conversation. She resists simple answers for deepest sorrow, entering instead into the raw complexities of grief, which she calls "the least linear thing I know."In Jan's distinctive spare and elegant style, Sparrow traces a path through the first few years after her loss, articulating not only the ache of grief but also the strange graces and stubborn hope that live within its landscape. Read more