Books To Read When You’re In The Mood To Cry For Days

When I’m in the mood for a good cry, and greeting cards and Sarah MacLachlan ASPCA commercials aren’t scratching the itch, I know I can count on epic family sagas, Hemingway’s spare prose, or a memoir for emotional release. And time and time again, I pull faithful friends-in-misery Joyce Carol Oates and Thomas Hardy from the shelves when I crave tears of profound sadness, joy, or utter frustration. Additionally, the memoir genre has never let me down—after all, literary self-portraits aren’t truly powerful if they don’t have me clutching the book and my heart, slow dancing by myself to the Bodyguard soundtrack in a darkened room. Below, some books that made me bawl the first time, the second time, and, though I should’ve seen the addictions, deaths, and betrayals coming, perhaps even the fifth time:
We Were The Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates. Yes, my weakness for Oates’ family sagas is as enduring as my love for her Twitter feed. In We Were The Mulvaneys, Oates unfolds an idyllic world for us that slowly implodes, as the once tightly knit Mulvaney family comes unraveled following a date rape. I couldn’t put the book down, even as the tears streamed.
The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb. Lamb is a born storyteller, with a voice that is both intimate and universal. He deftly intertwines the very public tragedy at Columbine High School with a relatable tale of personal crisis, discovery, and, ultmately, salvation. After fleeing Littleton, Colorado, for the family farm in Connecticut in order to salvage their relationship and sanity, Caelum and Maureen instead experience even more tragedy, and Caelum makes startling discoveries about his past. I wept throughout this novel of broken relationships, revelations, and redemption; it is both beautiful and painful.
Suite Francaise, by Irene Némirovsky. Though the remarkable origins of this novel should be more than sufficient to recommend it (it was recovered, unfinished, 64 years after it was written by Némirovsky, a successful Jewish writer who was arrested, deported, and killed in Auschwitz),Suite is magnificent, a heartbreakingly beautiful depiction of the Nazi occupation of Paris and a provincial French village. The narrative flows seamlessly across multiple perspectives, illuminating the themes of self-preservation and hope that transcend class and circumstance.
Operating Instructions, A Journal of My Son’s First Year, by Anne Lamott. This remains my favorite parenting book, and with two near-feral children under 4, you can be assured that I’ve digested an impressive compendium of instructional child-rearing manuals. Lamott is an honest writer, handling the semantic business of new life, impending death, religion, and growing out of addiction and into new motherhood with such agility and wry humor that you can’t imagine the world without her prose.
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway. This novel is one of Hemingway’s finest, one of my favorites (for the love stuff, not the war stuff); it’s a keen, harrowing depiction of his experiences as an ambulance driver during World War I. True story: upon completing this book in the summer of my 15th year, I recall openly weeping on a department store display bed as I contemplated Hemingway’s complicated, painful love story.
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. Like most of humanity, or at least the contingent I choose to consort with, I thought this novel was full of magic and incredibly provocative. Patchett uses her trademark lyrical, transcendent prose to describe, of all things, a hostage situation. Multiple perspectives expose unexpected relationships among the hostages as well as help cultivate concurrent empathy for the hostages, terrorists, and crisis negotiator. Some of the tears, I’m sure, stemmed from the fact that the book had to end.
Running With Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs. To be fair, most of my crying during my first read was the consequence of laughing too hard. And while laughing was probably the incorrect emotional response to Burroughs’ harrowing descriptions of moving in with his poetess mother’s shrink at 12, well, I’ve never claimed to be good at filtering or understanding or even using the phrase “positive emotional response” correctly in a sentence. And, as some of the relationships hit too close to home, a comical interpretation was safer. Put another way, my mother’s inscription in the inside cover reads, “Hopefully reading this will make YOUR life seem more normal!”
Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy. After doggedly pursuing this novel for months, which follows lovely, idealistic Tess down a slippery slope of temptation, rape, and (oh so many!) betrayals, and then selfishly surmising that Hardy customized his unjust ending simply to spite me, I cried crocodile tears with abandon. Most likely, I was too young at 14 to understand Hardy’s aims, so, as a true literary masochist, I am undertaking to methodically (re)read his entire body of work.
What books have you reaching for the Kleenex?