Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide PDF Download

Author: Rachel Zimmerman
Publisher: Santa Fe Writers Project
ISBN: 1951631366
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
"This poignant, soul-baring memoir is truly one of the most moving accounts of grief, loss and resilience that I've read." — Tara Parker-Pope, The Washington Post "Masterfully written and compelling... Zimmerman's book is a marvelous feat; I stayed up all night reading it." — Deesha Philyaw, author, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies "Us, After is one of the best memoirs I have read in a very long time. It is poetic and lyrical, unflinching, and a testament to the strength of the human soul...We bleed for Zimmerman and her two daughters. We laugh and cry with them. And ultimately we marvel at their strength and resilience." — Buzz Bissinger, author, Friday Night Lights When a state trooper appeared at Rachel Zimmerman's door to report that her husband had jumped to his death off a nearby bridge, she fell to her knees, unable to fully absorb the news. How could the man she married, a devoted father and robotics professor at MIT, have committed such a violent act? How would she explain this to her young daughters? And could she have stopped him? A longtime journalist, she probed obsessively, believing answers would help her survive. She interviewed doctors, suicide researchers and a man who jumped off the same bridge and lived. Us, After examines domestic devastation and resurgence, digging into the struggle between public and private selves, life's shifting perspectives, the work of motherhood, and the secrets we keep. In this memoir, Zimmerman confronts the unimaginable and discovers the good in what remains.

Author: Amy Bloom
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0593243943
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful memoir of a love that leads two people to find a courageous way to part—and a woman’s struggle to go forward in the face of loss—that “enriches the reader’s life with urgency and gratitude” (The Washington Post) “A pleasure to read . . . Rarely has a memoir about death been so full of life. . . . Bloom has a talent for mixing the prosaic and profound, the slapstick and the serious.”—USA Today ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer’s disease. Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian and Amy made the unimaginably difficult and painful decision to go to Dignitas, an organization based in Switzerland that empowers a person to end their own life with dignity and peace. In this heartbreaking and surprising memoir, Bloom sheds light on a part of life we so often shy away from discussing—its ending. Written in Bloom’s captivating, insightful voice and with her trademark wit and candor, In Love is an unforgettable portrait of a beautiful marriage, and a boundary-defying love.

Author: Amy Biancolli
Publisher: Behler Publications, LLC
ISBN: 1933016469
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
"Your life isn't over." My dad says this. "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it." I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now. "OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit. Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter. Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.

Author: Wendy Parmley
Publisher: Plain Sight
ISBN: 9781462115006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
After her mother took her own life, Wendy Parmley learned firsthand the heartache, despair, and loneliness that accompanies suicide loss. Reinvent your definition of saved, perfect, and forgiveness as you read this true narrative of a woman opening her heart years after her mother's suicide and learn how to overcome any loss in your own life.

Author: Joan Wickersham
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547350740
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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National Book Award Finalist: “Wickersham has journeyed into the dark underworld inside her father and herself and emerged with a powerful, gripping story.” —The Boston Globe One winter morning in 1991, Joan Wickersham’s father shot himself in the head. The father she loved would never have killed himself, and yet he had. His death made a mystery of his entire life. Who was he? Why did he do it? And what was the impact of his death on the people who loved him? Using an index—the most formal and orderly of structures—Wickersham explores this chaotic and incomprehensible reality. Every bit of family history, every encounter with friends, doctors, and other survivors, exposes another facet of elusive truth. Dark, funny, sad, and gripping, at once a philosophical and a deeply personal exploration, The Suicide Index is, finally, a daughter’s anguished, loving elegy to her father.

Author: Jennifer Ashton
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062906062
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
From the chief medical correspondent of ABC News, an eloquent, heartbreaking, yet hopeful memoir of surviving the suicide of a loved one, examining this dangerous epidemic and offering first-hand knowledge and advice to help family and friends find peace. Jennifer Ashton, M.D., has witnessed firsthand the impact of a loved one’s suicide. When her ex-husband killed himself soon after their divorce, her world—and that of her children—was shattered. Though she held a very public position with one of the world’s largest media companies, she was hesitant to speak about the personal trauma that she and her family experienced following his death. A woman who addresses the public regularly on intimate health topics, she was uncertain of revealing her devastating loss—the most painful thing she’d ever experienced. But with the high-profile suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, Dr. Ashton recognized the importance of talking about her experience and the power of giving voice to her grief. She shared her story with her Good Morning America family on air—an honest, heartbreaking revelation that provided comfort and solace to others, like her and her family, who have been left behind. In Life After Suicide, she opens up completely for the first time, hoping that her experience and words can inspire those faced with the unthinkable to persevere. Part memoir and part comforting guide that incorporates the latest insights from researchers and health professionals, Life After Suicide is both a call to arms against this dangerous, devastating epidemic, and an affecting story of personal grief and loss. In addition, Dr. Ashton includes stories from others who have survived the death of a loved one by their own hand, showing how they survived the unthinkable and demonstrating the vital roles that conversation and community play in recovering from the suicide of a loved one. The end result is a raw and revealing exploration of a subject that’s been taboo for far too long, providing support, information, and comfort for those attempting to make sense of their loss and find a way to heal.

Author: Donald Antrim
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324005572
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
One of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 One of BuzzFeed's Best Books of 2021 One of Vulture's Best Books of 2021 Named one of the Most Anticipated of Books of 2021 by the Los Angeles Times, Literary Hub, and The Millions A searing and brave memoir that offers a new understanding of suicide as a distinct mental illness. As the sun lowered in the sky one Friday afternoon in April 2006, acclaimed author Donald Antrim found himself on the roof of his Brooklyn apartment building, afraid for his life. In this moving memoir, Antrim vividly recounts what led him to the roof and what happened after he came back down: two hospitalizations, weeks of fruitless clinical trials, the terror of submitting to ECT—and the saving call from David Foster Wallace that convinced him to try it—as well as years of fitful recovery and setback. Through a clear and haunting reckoning with the author’s own story, One Friday in April confronts the limits of our understanding of suicide. Donald Antrim’s personal insights reframe suicide—whether in thought or in action—as an illness in its own right, a unique consequence of trauma and personal isolation, rather than the choice of a depressed person. A necessary companion to William Styron’s classic? Darkness Visible, this profound, insightful work sheds light on the tragedy and mystery of suicide, offering solace that may save lives.

Author: Ananda Lowe
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553385267
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Here is your guide to the fastest-growing trend in childbirth—a tradition as old as motherhood itself. Doulas, or professional labor assistants, have led thousands of expectant women through the birthing process in a way that’s safe and meaningful, and that creates the birth and postbirth experience all mothers long for. What exactly do doulas do? How to find one that suits you. What are the “trade secrets” only doulas know but every woman should be aware of (even if you don’t have a doula)? In The Doula Guide to Birth, senior-level doula Ananda Lowe and award-winning health reporter Rachel Zimmerman have written a most comprehensive book that draws on the wisdom of these skilled experts, whose experience with doctors, midwives, nurses, and hospitals makes them invaluable advocates before, during, and after birth. * Labor techniques anyone can use * Pain medication: do you, don’t you—and when? * What dads and loved ones need and can do best * When should you really go to the hospital in labor? * How to prepare for unexpected medical procedures, including cesareans and epidural * Postpartum—what it’s really like * A clip-out chart of labor techniques, birth plan worksheets, and much more Combining science, wit, warmth, and support, as well as the inspirational stories of dozens of mothers and their partners, you’ll find the “doula viewpoint” on every major pregnancy and delivery issue, making this one of the most important childbirth books you’ll ever read and recommend.

Author: Yiyun Li
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0399589112
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
In her first memoir, award-winning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature: a letter from a writer to like-minded readers. “A meditation on the fact that literature itself lives and gives life.”—Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead “What a long way it is from one life to another, yet why write if not for that distance?” Startlingly original and shining with quiet wisdom, this is a luminous account of a life lived with books. Written over two years while the author battled suicidal depression, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life is a painful and yet richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living. Yiyun Li grew up in China and has spent her adult life as an immigrant in a country not her own. She has been a scientist, an author, a mother, a daughter—and through it all she has been sustained by a profound connection with the writers and books she loves. From William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield to Søren Kierkegaard and Philip Larkin, Dear Friend is a journey through the deepest themes that bind these writers together. Interweaving personal experiences with a wide-ranging homage to her most cherished literary influences, Yiyun Li confronts the two most essential questions of her identity: Why write? And why live? Praise for Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life “Li has stared in the face of much that is beautiful and ugly and treacherous and illuminating—and from her experience she has produced a nourishing exploration of the will to live willfully.”—The Washington Post “Li’s transformation into a writer . . . is nothing short of astonishing.’”—The New York Times Book Review “An arrestingly lucid, intellectually vital series of contemplations on art, identity, and depression.”—The Boston Globe “Li is an exemplary storyteller and this account of her journey back to equilibrium, assisted by her closest companion, literature, is as powerful as any of her award-winning fiction, with the dark fixture of her Beijing past at its centre.”—Financial Times “Every writer is a reader first, and Dear Friend is Li’s haunted, luminous love letter to the words that shaped her. . . . Her own prose is both lovely and opaque, fitfully illuminating a radiant landscape of the personal and profound.”—Entertainment Weekly “Yiyun Li’s prose is lean and intense, and her ideas about books and writing are wholly original.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Author: Linda Gray Sexton
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 158243865X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
After the agony of witnessing her mother's multiple—and ultimately successful—suicide attempts, Linda Gray Sexton, daughter of the acclaimed poet Anne Sexton, struggles with an engulfing undertow of depression. Here, with powerful, unsparing prose, Sexton conveys her urgent need to escape the legacy of suicide that consumed her family—a topic rarely explored, even today, in such poignant depth. Linda Gray Sexton tries multiple times to kill herself—even though as a daughter, sister, wife, and most importantly, a mother, she knows the pain her act would cause. But unlike her mother's story, Linda's is ultimately one of triumph. Through the help of family, therapy, and medicine, she confronts deep–seated issues and curbs the haunting cycle of suicide she once seemed destined to inherit.