title: Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by: Porter, Max published: 2015-09-15 read: 2023-10 preview

“Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” by Max Porter is a novella that tells the story of a man and his two young sons who are grieving the sudden loss of their wife and mother. The narrative switches between the view of the father, the boys, and a crow that arrives to help the family cope with their grief. It’s not easy to write about love and loss, and this book’s alternative approach does a lot to solve the knot. As in, the power of art and literature to help us through hard times.

The book is structured as a series of vignettes, each of which is a snapshot of the family’s life in the aftermath of their loss. The father is working on a book about Ted Hughes called “Ted Hughes’ Crow on the Couch: A Wild Analysis,” and the crow that arrives to help the family is a nod to Hughes’ poetry collection “Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow”. The crow serves as a kind of guide for the family, giving insight into how to grieve, heal, and live. The boys describe watching their father grieve over the years and how they grow up without their mother. Family and friends check in on the family after the death, but soon, the family is all alone to cope with their loss.

I’m not sure if I liked it. But it moved, page by page. Up to the last one:

We went to a place she loved. I told them in the car on the way that I realised I had been an unusual dad since Mum died. They told me not to worry. I told them that all the nonsense about Crow was over, I was going to get a bit more teaching work and stop thinking about Ted Hughes. They told me not to worry. We parked the car and walked diagonals into the wind. We pissed and the wind blew our wee back against our trousers. While the boys were digging in the shingle I dozed off and when I woke up they were asleep, next to me, like guards, with their hoods up. I was warm. I didn’t wake them. I walked to the shoreline. I knelt down and opened the tin. I said her name. I recited ‘Lovesong’, a poem I like a great deal but she never thought much of. I apologised for reading it and told myself not to worry. The ashes stirred and seemed eager so I tilted the tin and I yelled into the wind I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU and up they went, the sense of a cloud, the failure of clouds, scientifically quick and visually hopeless, a murder of little burnt birds flecked against the grey sky, the grey sea, the white sun, and gone. And the boys were behind me, a tide-wall of laughter and yelling, hugging my legs, tripping and grabbing, leaping, spinning, stumbling, roaring, shrieking and the boys shouted I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU and their voice was the life and song of their mother. Unfinished. Beautiful. Everything.