In Lieu of Flowers: A Conversation for the Living - Hardcover

Cobb, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375403418 ISBN 13: 9780375403415

Publisher: Pantheon, 2000

Synopsis

With the curiosity of a child and the wisdom of an old soul, Nancy Cobb meets death in the most vital of places: in the lives of everyday people. In doing so she has found a way to infuse this darkest of subjects with light and wit. In Lieu of Flowers proves that what makes us cry can also make us laugh, what depresses us can also enlighten us. Cobb's candor and refreshing perspective make the deaths of those she has loved -- and death itself -- a subject to explore rather than avoid.
Cobb's personal experiences become a point of departure for what amounts to a longer conversation about loss. She shares moments of her own mourning and draws others into the conversation as well: among them, a bank teller who still dreams of her deceased grandmother, two small children who bury a wild bird in its final nest beneath a maple tree, and a hospice nurse who acts as an end-of-life midwife. Presented naturally, each anecdote is delivered in a true, clear voice rather than in the hushed tones that too often accompany words of consolation. In telling her stories Cobb opens us up to our own, and she encourages us to accept and honor the "divine intersections" where the living meet the dying.
Candid, powerful, and enlightening, this is an extraordinary treatment of one of the most ordinary and difficult experiences of life.

About this title

From the Publisher

"In Lieu of Flowers is an eloquent book. The author's harrowing insistence that death be confronted without the veil of denial is made possible, and even more starkly compelling, by the grace and wit of her writing."
-- Kay Redfield Jamison, author of Night Falls Fast and An Unquiet Mind

"An elegant book whose dark subject matter is lightened by the author's wry and sometimes brazen storytelling perspective. Each story Ms. Cobb tells is rendered with grace and simple honesty... [ In Lieu of Flowers is] a candid collection of tales that lets readers know they aren't alone."
-- The Wall Street Journal

"This little book, at times light-hearted and at times heart-breaking, is, in its own way, poetry....With kindness, understanding, and humor, she tells us stories of friends she has loved and lost. She also tells the stories of people she has never known, but whose tales were told to her by bank tellers and others in little more than chance meetings."
-- The Norwich Bulletin

"Absolutely beautiful in both feeling and in word...manages to communicate great wisdom and truth in unpretentious, hilarious, and heartfelt prose.... Cobb has artfully brought into dialogue a subject still too-often left to linger in silence."
-- NAPRA Review

"Nancy Cobb's meditation on grieving is personal and persuasive -- sustenance for the mind, and the soul."
-- Wally Lamb

"Remarkable...a powerful and moving book."
-- Judith Light

"We are all much too afraid of death and we've got to get over it. Not only because we will die but perhaps more to the point because our friends and loved ones will die, and if we can't discuss death we can neither help nor be helped. A very good way to begin this process is to read Nancy Cobb's gorgeous, indispensable book, In Lieu of Flowers."
-- Kathleen Chalfant, star of the Pulitzer prize-winning play Wit

"There is no wrong way to grieve, Nancy Cobb tells us, but this brave, bright-eyed tale of how she managed to face the deaths of her parents and other loved ones provides a striking model. Written with intelligence, charm, and even humor, In Lieu of Flowers enlivens our awareness that death is, after all, what binds us all together most fiercely."
-- Billy Collins, author of Questions About Angels

From the Back Cover

“An elegant book . . . that lets readers know they aren’t alone.”
–Wall Street Journal

“Mesmerizing. Cobb is down to earth, funny, disturbingly direct.”
–Detroit Free Press

“An eloquent book. Cobb’s harrowing insistence that death be confronted without the veil of denial is made possible, and even more starkly compelling, by the grace and wit of her writing.”
–Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0375403418
• ISBN 13: 9780375403415
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176