March 2026
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    I’m looking for literary fiction or memoir/essays about grief by writers who have experienced loss. As someone in a long depressive mental state following the suicide of my brother, I have only really felt seen and understood by authors who personally know grief, not those using it as a plot device without firsthand knowledge (it becomes really easy to tell the difference from the inside). And as a writer, I am interested in those who have used writing as a way to process their grief.

    Examples of what worked for me:

    Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li

    The Year of Magical Thinking or Blue Nights by Joan Didion

    The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy (I also recently had a miscarriage so this one was apt)

    I am not interested in self help books or philosophy at the moment and I’m not really looking for genre fiction (no TJ Klune please). I am also not looking for anything about the loss of a pet, I hate that I even have to explain that but some people equate all types of grief and I’m not interested in entertaining that. Pets are lovely, my brother was a human being who I will now not get to grow old beside.

    Thanks in advance if anyone has recommendations.

    by blue98ranger

    3 Comments

    1. Over_Opportunity_199 on

      H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald worked for me after the loss of a family member earlier this year. The author suddenly lost her father and coped in part by raising and training a goshawk, then combining writing about her grief with nature writing and the history of falconry.

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