Perdita: On Loss

An intense literary memoir of love and grief

“Our marriage was, from any conventional point of view, wildly implausible; and you, my dear son, are the miraculous product of this beautiful, rather crazy, and all too brief love affair.” When Dylan Riley received the devastating news that his wife, Emanuela, had cancer, he turned to writing to express the anguish and disarray brought by her worsening symptoms and then her passing. Perdita, composed for their teenage son, Eamon, is the result of...