The unwelcome guest

I've just finished reading An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken, a beautifully written memoir of the year between the stillbirth of her first child and the live birth of her second. Amazingly honest without being maudlin, the book examines the complicated experiences of a woman preparing to give birth while still mourning a great loss, and even though it begins with "Once upon a time," the book actively avoids entering fairy-tale terrain:

Once upon a time, before I knew anything about the subject, a woman told me that I should write a book about the lighter side of losing a child. (This is not that book.)

McCracken's prose crackles and sparks and assumes a lyrical cadence, and it is always thoughtful and polished and full of vivid images:

Of course you can't out-travel sadness. You will find that it has smuggled itself along in your suitcase. It coats the camera lens, it flavors the local cuisine. In that different sunlight, it stands out, awkward, yours, honking in the brash vowels of your native tongue in otherwise quiet restaurants. You may even feel proud of its stubbornness as it follows you up the bell towers and monuments, as it pants in your ear while you take in the view. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings or on deserted beaches.

I've never lost a child but I've known the kind of sadness that tags along like a guest who won't go home. McCracken considers the impact of grief on her creative process, an emphasis that invites comparison to Anthony Doerr's Four Seasons in Rome, which similarly deals with the author's difficulties in trying to write in an alien place where he doesn't speak the language. The chief difference, however, is that Doerr's twin infants act as little ambassadors between the writer and the local community, while the death of McCracken's baby opens a gulf few are able to cross. This book shows us the dimensions of that gulf and marks the places where crossing is possible, providing a useful map for anyone encountering great loss.