It's hard to imagine anything more devastating than the death of a newborn at birth. Elizabeth McCracken describes this experience in her memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. The stillbirth of the baby she and her husband refer to as "Pudding" is the centerpiece of the narrative, which also includes much about their peripatetic and somewhat boozy writing lives. Nothing, however, was ever the same after the baby died before birth. McCracken goes on to get pregnant with her second child while still mourning the first. This book is a quick, intense, moving read. ( )

Yipes. This is the funniest book about stillborn babies I have ever encountered. The chapters are short and few, each with its own heartbreaking, beautiful writing. Worth it as a contrastive companion to Didion's "Year of Magical Thinging" and especially worth it for the description of an intern giving a cervical exam. Oh, and it's not all terrible things happening. ( )

I heard about this on the radio, and chose it for my book club. A bittersweet memoir about a woman whose first baby was stillborn, and how that experience affected her subsequent successful pregnancy.

I read this a long time ago, and wrote a review - then deleted it by accident when GR for some reason recommended a different edition of the same book. ( )

Of course, it is about grief and grieving. I knew that when I added the book to my 'Planning to Read' list. But it does not, let's use a phrase McCracken uses in her book, it does not 'take you by the throat', it does not leave you shaking with racking sobs. It did not make me weep the way I did when I watched a youtube video in memory of a 2 month old who was now dead. It tugged at my heart a lot. It also made me smile in a sad way. For this book, is witty and beautiful. There is sadness, but also, there is joy and hope.

You know what happens in the book - McCracken's nine-month old baby dies shortly before birth. A stillbirth. McCracken goes on to deliver a second baby. Alive and well.

Grief is complex. Difficult for the bereaved, but also to the outsider. How do you console the disconsolate? What words are right? What brings comfort? What words are forbidden? Is it okay to mention the tragedy? Or will that rub salt into the wound and bring forth painful memories? Is it okay to say 'I don't know what to say'? Or is that being a coward? How much time before you move on? Is there any such thing as moving on? How long do you acknowledge the calamity then?

This book does not answer all these questions. But it made me wonder. What do I say? How do I react?

Oh, but I did cry. When I read the tender way in which McCracken describes seeing the baby for the first and only time. A beautiful, new, dead baby in diapers and knit cap. Broke my heart.

Why would I want anybody to read a book that made me cry? That would probably make them cry as well? There is not only death in this book. There is life and love and profound beauty of prose. Even the grief is calm in its pain. ( )

Of course, it is about grief and grieving. I knew that when I added the book to my 'Planning to Read' list. But it does not, let's use a phrase McCracken uses in her book, it does not 'take you by the throat', it does not leave you shaking with racking sobs. It did not make me weep the way I did when I watched a youtube video in memory of a 2 month old who was now dead. It tugged at my heart a lot. It also made me smile in a sad way. For this book, is witty and beautiful. There is sadness, but also, there is joy and hope.

You know what happens in the book - McCracken's nine-month old baby dies shortly before birth. A stillbirth. McCracken goes on to deliver a second baby. Alive and well.

Grief is complex. Difficult for the bereaved, but also to the outsider. How do you console the disconsolate? What words are right? What brings comfort? What words are forbidden? Is it okay to mention the tragedy? Or will that rub salt into the wound and bring forth painful memories? Is it okay to say 'I don't know what to say'? Or is that being a coward? How much time before you move on? Is there any such thing as moving on? How long do you acknowledge the calamity then?

This book does not answer all these questions. But it made me wonder. What do I say? How do I react?

Oh, but I did cry. When I read the tender way in which McCracken describes seeing the baby for the first and only time. A beautiful, new, dead baby in diapers and knit cap. Broke my heart.

Why would I want anybody to read a book that made me cry? That would probably make them cry as well? There is not only death in this book. There is life and love and profound beauty of prose. Even the grief is calm in its pain. ( )