Book Review · 13th April 2020

Grief is the Thing With Feathers

Max Porter. Faber & Faber. (128p) ISBN: 9780571327232

I was so looking forward to Grief is the Thing with Feathers after hearing so much about it.

It was such a refreshing change from the works I usually read, prose and poetry combined into a brave journey through grief and the feelings that come from being the one left behind to continue the shared life.

I was warned it was a quick read and it really is, just over a morning but but what a morning.

A family grieving their dead mother/wife are visited by the Grief of the title, at times confidant, at times trickster.

I was in floods of tears in the coffee shop reading this, but I also burst out laughing at parts.

Fluid, energetic, dissonant, there was such a great play on words which at times were straight prose, at other times poetry and song lyrics, all of which helped the book flow wonderfully.

A great debut.


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