Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir - Hardcover

McCracken, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022408710X ISBN 13: 9780224087100

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2009

Synopsis

'This is the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending'. A prize-winning, successful novelist in her 30s, Elizabeth McCracken was happy to be an itinerant writer and self-proclaimed spinster. Then she fell in love, got married, and continued her life of writing, travelling, and teaching with her husband. Two years ago, she found herself in a remote part of France, waiting for the birth of her first child. This book is about what happens next. In the ninth month of her pregnancy, a baby is lost. Just over a year later, a baby is born. In a profoundly moving display of humour, heart, and unfailing generosity, McCracken tenderly presents her story: a story of true love and unfathomable sadness, of courageous recovery and bittersweet moments, of steadfast memories and deep affection. Grief walks through these pages of this remarkable book, but so do happiness and hope.

About this title

About the Author:

Elizabeth McCracken is the author of The Giant's House, which was nominated for the National Book Award; Niagara Falls All Over Again, winner of the PEN/Winship Award; and Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry, a collection of stories. She has received grants and awards from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Academy in Berlin.

From AudioFile:

At first glance, a mother's memoir of the stillborn child she lost at the end stages of pregnancy might seem to be an unbearably heavy listen. But Elizabeth McCracken's poignant story of love and loss, written as a tribute to the lost child and as a catharsis for her and her husband, evokes with its simultaneously tender prose and dark sense of humor the hopes and grief of a couple that has suffered the unthinkable. McCracken narrates her own story with a sort of quiet resolve, emotions not on full display in her voice but at the same time easily discernible just beneath a thin veneer of composure. Listeners will feel the mixture of joy and sadness in her understated performance. S.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 022408710X
• ISBN 13: 9780224087100
• Binding: Hardcover