Monday, November 11, 2024

Nine titles featuring navigating grief through found family

Laura Buchwald is a writer and editor based in New York City. Her strong belief in the afterlife has led her to consult with multiple spiritual mediums, to convincing results. She has spent significant time in New Orleans researching ghosts and restaurant culture—two of her favorite things. She is co-host of the podcast People Who Do Things, a series of conversations about the creative process. Buchwald lives in Manhattan with her husband and dog.

Her new novel is The Coat Check Girl.

At Electric Lit Buchwald tagged nine "books that address the theme of navigating grief through found family." One title on the list:
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

The protagonist and narrator of this quiet story is mourning the loss of a dear friend and mentor who took his own life. She adopts his equally bereft Great Dane, Apollo, and embarks on an effort to understand who her friend was, flaws and all, while dealing with the threat of eviction for housing a dog in a pet-averse building. What at first seems a relationship born strictly of necessity soon comes to show our protagonist the ineffable bond we can share with our canine companions.
Read about the other entries on the list.

The Friend is among Peter Ho Davies’s top ten books about the unknowable, Mia Levitin's ten top books about consent, Lee Conell's seven books about New York City’s stark economic divide and Eliza Smith's twenty books to help you navigate grief.

--Marshal Zeringue