There is no blue / Martha Baillie.

There is no blue / Martha Baillie.

By
Baillie, Martha, 1960-

Publication Date
2023

Publication Information
Toronto : Coach House Books,

Physical Description
190 p.

Subject Term
Grief.
 
Essays.
 
Sisters.
 
Bereavement.
 
Authors, Canadian (English) -- Biography.
 
Parents -- Death -- Psychological aspects.
 
Death -- Psychological aspects.

Contents
Her body -- Bend in the path -- You can say goodbye.

Summary
Martha Baillie's richly layered response to her mother's passing, her father's life, and her sister's suicide is an exploration of how the body, the rooms we inhabit, and our languages offer the psyche a home, if only for a time. Three essays, three deaths. The first is the death of the author's mother, a protracted disappearance, leaving space for thoughtfulness and ritual: the washing of her body, the making of a death mask. The second considers Baillie's father, his remoteness, his charm, a lacuna at the center of the family even before his death, earlier than her mother's. And then, third, shockingly, the author's sister, a visual artist and writer living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who writes three reasons to die on her bedroom wall and then takes her life, just before the book the sisters co-authored is due to come out. In this close observation of a family, few absolutes hold, as experiences of reality diverge. A memoir of cascading grief and survival from the author of The Incident Report.

Language
English

ISBN
9781552454749


LibraryCollectionCollectionCall NumberStatus
St. John's - A.C. Hunter (SJH)ADULT NFIC - DISPLAYAdult Non-Fiction Display814.6 B15Checked In