An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir (Roughcut) - Hardcover

McCracken, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316027677 ISBN 13: 9780316027670

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2008

Synopsis

"This is the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending," writes Elizabeth McCracken in her powerful, inspiring memoir. A prize-winning, successful novelist in her 30s, McCracken was happy to be an itinerant writer and self-proclaimed spinster. But suddenly she fell in love, got married, and two years ago was living in a remote part of France, working on her novel, and waiting for the birth of her first child.
This book is about what happened next. In her ninth month of pregnancy, she learned that her baby boy had died. How do you deal with and recover from this kind of loss? Of course you don't--but you go on. And if you have ever experienced loss or love someone who has, the company of this remarkable book will help you go on.
With humor and warmth and unfailing generosity, McCracken considers the nature of love and grief. She opens her heart and leaves all of ours the richer for it.

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: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0316027677
• ISBN 13: 9780316027670
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192