Geraldine Brooks's 10th book, the elegant bereavement memoir Memorial Days, chronicles the sudden death of her husband and her grieving process.
On May 27, 2019 (Memorial Day), Brooks's husband, the author and journalist Tony Horwitz, collapsed while on book tour in Washington, D.C., and couldn't be revived. His cause of death was eventually revealed to be myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscles. Brooks learned that he had recently consulted his cardiologist about shortness of breath. She also realized, in hindsight, that he'd become reliant on alcohol and stimulants to keep up a frenetic pace of work.
In alternating chapters, Brooks (Horse; Caleb's Crossing) toggles between the immediate aftermath of her bereavement--breaking the news, dealing with bureaucracy, gathering with family, planning memorial services--and a February 2023 trip to Flinders Island in her native Australia. There she surrendered to the sorrow she'd been suppressing for years, finally allowing herself to relive her shared past with Horwitz: Columbia Journalism School, dicey Middle East correspondent days, and raising their sons on Martha's Vineyard. Though they were secular Jews, Brooks unintentionally observed informal Jewish mourning rituals while on Flinders and also researched their presence in other cultures, including Australia's First Nations people.
Memorial Days gives a keen sense, through its vivid scenes and matter-of-fact tone, of how practical and philosophical matters jostle for position after a death. It courts universality by pondering how to memorialize those who are gone. Based on her own experience of stifling emotions, Brooks advises others to take time to grieve. Her lucid account will attract readers of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck