About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452287995 ISBN 13: 9780452287990

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2006

Synopsis

In this intimate anthology, twenty writers explore the grief and sadness—and hope—that living through a miscarriage can bring.

Featuring such notable writers as Pam Houston, Joyce Maynard, Caroline Leavitt, Susanna Sonnenberg, and Julianna Baggott, among many others, About What Was Lost is the only book that uses honest, eloquent, and deeply moving narrative to provide much-needed solace and support on the subject of pregnancy loss.

Today, as many as one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. And yet, many women are surprised to find that instead of simply grieving the end of a pregnancy, they feel as if they are mourning the loss of a child. Taken aback by their sorrow, they seek solace in similar perspectives—only to find that a silence and lingering stigma surrounds the topic. Revealing a wide spectrum of experiences and perspectives, this powerful collection offers comfort and community for the millions of women (and their loved ones) who experience this all-too-common kind of loss every year.

About this title

About the Author

Jessica Berger Gross is the author of the bestselling Amazon Kindle Single Estranged and the editor of the anthology About What Was Lost: 20 Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Salon, and the Globe and Mail. She lives in Maine with her husband and son.

From the Back Cover

"Moving, hopeful, and important, About What Was Lost opens an essential dialogue about an experience that, for too long, has been suffered in silence."
--Rebecca Walker, author of Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood after a Lifetime of Ambivalence

"Jessica Berger Gross has compiled a collection of honest and courageous stories that remind us that many routes exist between loss and healing. Never let anyone tell you that miscarriage isn't a 'real' loss. These essays eloquently prove otherwise."
--Hope Edelman, Motherless Daughters and Motherless Mothers

"Without exception, the essays collected in About What Was Lost are courageous, gripping and profoundly moving. Jessica Berger Gross has assembled a fine group of writers whose voices rise up-both individually and as a chorus-to give shape to an experience that so often remains buried and silent. This is more than a beautiful anthology. It's a gift to the many women who will find the solace of shared experience in these pages."
--Dani Shapiro, author of Family History

"The unspeakable has finally spoken, and what a relief. When these beautiful, honest writers cast their light into the shadows of miscarriage, the topic blooms on the page into stories bright with hope, yes, but dark with the particular and bottomless grief of parenthood interrupted. I wish I'd had this book's wise company when I needed it most."
--Catherine Newman, author of Waiting for Birdy

Reviews

While "20 to 25 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage," this heartbreaking loss is rarely discussed at length in pregnancy handbooks. Editor Gross decided to break this silence by assembling an anthology of essays by women who'd experienced miscarriages and were willing to write about it. Most of her contributors are freelance writers, academics or wives of academics. Even if they hadn't planned or wanted their pregnancies, all experienced their miscarriages as the death of a loved one. Demolished with grief, they found little usable sympathy, even from those who meant well. Some had understanding spouses; most only got real support from other women who'd also miscarried. Most went on to bear another child; some, like editor Gross, decided to adopt; a rare few decided their future did not include children (or more children). One contributor, Miranda Field, mentions positive rituals for grieving mothers in Japan, but aside from that there are few voices outside of the white, middle-class. Readers in search of something broader in scope might find it in Peggy Orenstein's Waiting for Daisy. Still, Gross's anthology fills a void and may open the door for more varied ones. (Jan.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0452287995
• ISBN 13: 9780452287990
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 266
• Editor: Gross Jessica Berger