Sarah Pekkanen
…powerful…If it all seems overly depressing, consider that even as her characters spiral closer to self-destruction, Cohen creates gorgeous, uncommon descriptions that sound like grace notes on her pages…There's pain in reading this book, but there's another thread running through it, too, gleaming with all the vibrancy of Cohen's prose: hope.
—The Washington Post
From the Publisher
"Cohen creates gorgeous, uncommon descriptions that sound like grace notes on her pages. . . . There's pain in reading this book, but there's another thread running through it, too, gleaming with all the vibrancy of Cohen's prose: hope."—The Washington Post
"Leah Hager Cohen is one of our foremost chroniclers of the mundane complexities, nuanced tragedies and unexpected tendernesses of human connection. . . . For all its deep-seated sorrows, this is a hopeful book, a series of striking vignettes illuminating the humanity of these fully realized characters."—The New York Times Book Review
"In this subtle portrait of family life she shows the maddening arithmetic of marriage, the useless attempts to balance the equation. As Ricky and John's kids start to come unglued themselves, we see how the grief of others is contagious. . . . Ms. Cohen's painstaking excavation pays off, especially as Ricky and John decide to rebuild."—The New York Times
"Part of the novel's pathos lies in its ability to offer its characters a level of perceptive acuity and sympathetic attention they cannot offer one another ... The book's brilliance lies in moments like this one, these shards of devastating insight. Cohen's empathy is sure-footed and seemingly boundless; her writing gifts its characters with glints of ordinary human radiance. It is the possibility of this glinting that ultimately becomes Cohen's most powerful gift to us, her readers, as well."—San Francisco Chronicle
"The death of a newborn triggers the slow collapse of the Ryrie clan in Hager Cohen's richly layered new novel. . . . Affecting."—More
"With this incredibly moving commentary, Cohen has secured a place in the lineup of today's great writers."—Bookpage
"Cohen's (House Lights) stunning writing and ruthless, beautiful magnification of soul-crushing sorrow that threatens the Ryries' day-to- day family life mesmerizes, wounds, and possibly even heals her readers. Her courageous novel (she knows of what she writes) is to be savored."—Library Journal
"With gorgeous prose, Cohen skillfully takes us from past to present and back again as she explores the ramifications of family loss, grief and longing."—Kirkus
“The Grief of Others is an engrossing and revealing look at a family sinking beneath the weight of a terrible secret. Leah Hager Cohen writes about difficult subjects with unfailing compassion and insight.”—Tom Perrotta, New York Times–bestselling author of Little Children
“Leah Hager Cohen's new novel is a perceptive, absorbing drama about the complex bonds of the modern American family and the treachero's paradox of the way we live now. Somehow, the more open and flexible we try to become as spouses and parents, the more emotional risks we take—and the more secrets we keep. I love how deeply Cohen delves into the hearts of all her characters, bringing them fully alive, from their most heroic strivings to their darkest flaws.”—Julia Glass, author of The Widower’s Tale
“How does a family transcend its own pain? How do the secrets we keep shape our lives and the lives of those we love? In this gracefully written, elegantly structured novel, Leah Hagar Cohen has created an indelible cast of characters whose story is at once wrenching and redemptive. This is a beautiful book.”—Dani Shapiro, author of Family History
“The Grief of Others is a gorgeous, absorbing, intricately told tale of one family on the brink of collapse, as well as an intimate exploration of art and its place in our lives. Leah Hager Cohen expertly juggles six characters and all their needs, yearning, wounds, and secrets with tremendous skill and—even more importantly—deep and tender compassion. She is a masterful writer on every level.”—Lily King, author of Father of the Rain
“The Grief of Others is delicate, haunting, and lovely, and very difficult to leave on the shelf.”—Susanna Daniel, author of Stiltsville
“A wise and compassionate novel that looks frankly at the ways members of a family can wound and betray each other, even when trying to do just the opposite. Leah Hager Cohen is particularly brave in her portrait of Ricky and John's marriage, faltering after a traumatic loss. Readers will be tempted to villify Ricky, but she's much too complex for that. Despite the lies, subterfuges and silences these characters inflict on each other, there are no villains here, just a family trying to carry on in a world that feels increasingly unreliable, and at times unhinged.”—Suzanne Berne, author of The Ghost at the Table
author of Little Children Tom Perrotta
An engrossing and revealing look at family…Leah Hager Cohen writes about difficult subjects with unfailing compassion and insight.”
San Francisco Chronicle
Part of the novel's pathos lies in its ability to offer its characters a level of perceptive acuity and sympathetic attention they cannot offer one another ... The book's brilliance lies in moments like this one, these shards of devastating insight. Cohen's empathy is sure-footed and seemingly boundless; her writing gifts its characters with glints of ordinary human radiance. It is the possibility of this glinting that ultimately becomes Cohen's most powerful gift to us, her readers, as well.
New York Times Book Review
Leah Hager Cohen is one of our foremost chroniclers of the mundane complexities, nuanced tragedies and unexpected tendernesses of human connection...Impressively, her fourth novel, "The Grief of Others," is her best work yet...Cohen's style is crisp but compassionate, lyrical only so far as is necessary to lift her characters' lives into emotional ether...Leah Hager Cohen drives home our ability to attach to something small and doomed simply because it exists...For all its deep-seated sorrows, this is a hopeful book, a series of striking vignettes illuminating the humanity of these fully realized characters.
BookPage
With this incredibly moving commentary, Cohen has secured a place in the lineup of today's great writers.
OCTOBER 2011 - AudioFile
Perhaps the only thing that can help one endure grief is the understanding that the feeling may one day lessen in intensity, its edges smoothing with time. While the characters in this audiobook are far from that awareness, caught as they are in the torment of having lost loved ones, the listener has Pam Ward’s performance to shine a soft light. Ward is consistently gentle throughout the painful turns of this novel, her voice empathetic and appropriately wistful. Her skilled phrasing spans time shifts and voices that range from those of toddlers to adults with nary a hesitation. The only time the listener may be pulled from this engrossing novel is to marvel at its affecting writing. Altogether, this is a remarkable audiobook. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
A mother faces the heartbreaking loss of an infant son, which inevitably changes the family dynamics.
Ricky Ryrie and her husband John react to the death of their child in different ways. First, Ricky knows that the child was prenatally diagnosed with a serious brain defect and probably would not live long, but she keeps this diagnosis from her husband, who fully expects the birth of a healthy son. (Ricky has not considered an abortion at least in part because of her hope of a misdiagnosis.) John is perhaps more stunned by Ricky's keeping this a secret than by the medical complication of his son. But John has also had a secret past, for before he met Ricky he fathered a child, Jess, in a youthful fling. Ten years before the birth of the doomed child, his daughter Jess has gone on a camping trip with her father, Ricky, and the two younger Ryrie children, Paul and Biscuit. Shortly after the birth and death of the Ryries' baby, Jess, now 23 and pregnant, shows up again on their doorstep. Jess is unconventional and free-spirited, and Paul, now an awkward adolescent, is both tongue-tied and half in love with her. Biscuit knows that there's sadness in the household and tries to act out her grief in various ways, including spreading ashes in a river. The death of the child also brings back unsavory events from Ricky's life—for example, a brief affair from three months before her marriage to John.
With gorgeous prose, Cohen skillfully takes us from past to present and back again as she explores the ramifications of family loss, grief and longing.
