The Long Goodbye

Starred review from February 21, 2011
In this eloquent, somber memoir about the death of her mother and grieving aftermath, poet and journalist O'Rourke (Halflife) ponders the eternal human question: how do we live with the knowledge that we will one day die? O'Rourke's mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer on Christmas day 2008; the headmaster of a Westport, Conn., private school, she was only 55 years old, and left a stricken husband, two sons, and daughter O'Rourke, the eldest sibling. O'Rourke had shuttled back and forth from her life in Brooklyn and then job at Slate over the preceding year to care for her increasingly debilitated mother. The two were extremely close, and the shock of her mother's illness devastated the whole family (the author married her longtime boyfriend shortly after the Stage 4 diagnosis, then separated just as quickly). Over the last months, O'Rourke was bracing herself, "preparing" for her mother's death, by reading everything she could during the dizzying rounds of doctors' and hospital visits, until the family could take their mother home to die in a heavily medicated peace. Anxious by nature, secretive, often emotionally brittle, O'Rourke grew acutely sensitive to her mother's changing states over the last months, desperate for a sign of her mother's love to carry her through the months of bereavement. O'Rourke heals herself in this pensive, cerebral work, moving from intense anguish and nostalgia to finding solace in dreams, sex, and the comforting words of other authors.

Starred review from January 15, 2011

Poet and Slate culture critic O'Rourke (Halflife: Poems, 2007) offers a staggeringly intimate account of a pristine life interrupted by the ravages of her mother's cancer.

Much like Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) and Sarah Manguso's The Two Kinds of Decay (2008), O'Rourke makes fine use of a strong voice and hyperawareness to recount a terribly painful tale. The author spares the reader no detail, revealing the deconstruction of a human being in the simplest terms imaginable. "I was stunned by the way my mother's body was being taken to pieces," she writes, "how each new week brought a new failure, how surreal the disintegration of a body was." While there is no dearth of grief memoirs, O'Rourke's candor allows her work to far transcend the imitators. She is fully conscious of the trappings of her genre, often admitting, "I know this may sound melodramatic," and remaining wholly dedicated to combating the convenience of cliché, even acknowledging when she uses it. While the death of O'Rourke's mother takes place midway through the book, her presence lingers. The author provides many seemingly insignificant details that provide a much-needed humanizing effect, sparing the victim from functioning as little more than a stand-in for her illness. Equally successful is O'Rourke's ability to navigate beyond the realm of sentimentality, much preferring to render the drama with firm-lipped frankness.

An unflinching, cathartic memoir.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010

Stunned by the strength of her reaction when her mother died at age 55, award-winning poet and Slate culture critic O'Rourke began keeping a record of her slow passage through grief, which she eventually shared with Slate readers. Her nine-part series got huge response and even sparked comparisons to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. That's a good recommendation.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2011
Slates ORourke conveys the tectonic shift that accompanies the death of a parent with a rare elegance and poignancy that touches the soul. From the Taser-like shock of her still-young mothers cancer diagnosis through her chemotherapy, brief remission, and death at just 55, ORourkes grief is an open wound. No matter the length and bitter reality of her mothers illness, it is clear that ORourke remained unprepared for the impact of her death. But beyond the depiction of her personal grief, this is the story of a family accustomed to taking their love and interconnectedness for granted. The raw feelings, the inevitable self-pity over each persons own loss, and their futile wishes to somehow make Mothers last days not be her last days will likely feel all too close to home for many who have suffered similarly. And yet, accompanying ORourke on this trek through her valley of grief and seeing how she flounders in the midst of a culture that offers scant support for mourners provides a kind of comfort that only a kindred spirit (who can write fantastically well) can. Every tear-stained page is not a road map, but rather a lovely gift from a fellow traveler.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

Starred review from January 15, 2011

Poet and Slate culture critic O'Rourke (Halflife: Poems, 2007) offers a staggeringly intimate account of a pristine life interrupted by the ravages of her mother's cancer.

Much like Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) and Sarah Manguso's The Two Kinds of Decay (2008), O'Rourke makes fine use of a strong voice and hyperawareness to recount a terribly painful tale. The author spares the reader no detail, revealing the deconstruction of a human being in the simplest terms imaginable. "I was stunned by the way my mother's body was being taken to pieces," she writes, "how each new week brought a new failure, how surreal the disintegration of a body was." While there is no dearth of grief memoirs, O'Rourke's candor allows her work to far transcend the imitators. She is fully conscious of the trappings of her genre, often admitting, "I know this may sound melodramatic," and remaining wholly dedicated to combating the convenience of clich�, even acknowledging when she uses it. While the death of O'Rourke's mother takes place midway through the book, her presence lingers. The author provides many seemingly insignificant details that provide a much-needed humanizing effect, sparing the victim from functioning as little more than a stand-in for her illness. Equally successful is O'Rourke's ability to navigate beyond the realm of sentimentality, much preferring to render the drama with firm-lipped frankness.

An unflinching, cathartic memoir.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)