Perdita: On Loss

By: Dylan Riley

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Synopsis: An intense literary memoir of love and grief&“Our marriage was, from any conventional point of view, wildly implausible; and you, my dear son, are the miraculous product of this beautiful, rather crazy, and all too brief love affair.&” When Dylan Riley received the devastating news that his wife, Emanuela, had cancer, he turned to writing to express the anguish and disarray brought by her worsening symptoms and then her passing. Perdita, composed for their teenage son, Eamon, is the result of this attempt to represent loss. It is at once a portrait of youth, a lyrical memoir of a marriage, and a raw and moving account of bereavement.Riley describes cancer, Perdita&’s central antagonist, as a pitiless opponent, draining hope of its power and reducing it to self-delusion. Its course forces a progressive foreshortening of time. Next year might be terrible, but there can be a few good months now; tomorrow will likely be bad, but let&’s focus on today.In this memoir, the disease provokes a broader set of reflections on the openness, contingency, and pain of the human condition, a status defined by the context of mortality, both our own and that of those we love.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9781804296110
Related ISBNs:: 9781804296080
Publisher:: Verso Books
Date of Addition:: 10/29/24
Copyrighted By:: Dylan Riley
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Psychology, Social Studies
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.