Maureen Corrigan

Like his 1998 bestseller, Confederates in the Attic, Spying on the South presciently explored the great divide in America between red states and blue. Curiously, for a writer so attuned to boundary lines, Horowitz, who was traveling on book tour, collapsed and died on a street that divides Washington, D.C. and Maryland.

Like his 1998 bestseller, Confederates in the Attic, Spying on the South presciently explored the great divide in America between red states and blue. Curiously, for a writer so attuned to boundary lines, Horowitz, who was traveling on book tour, collapsed and died on a street that divides Washington, D.C. and Maryland.

Horwitz's wife, novelist Geraldine Brooks, was far away at their home in Martha's Vineyard. The opening of her memoir, Memorial Days, describes in present tense fragmented phrases what it was like to be on the receiving end of a call from an ER doc whose voice is flat, exhausted, impatient, and who refers to her husband's body as it.

Horwitz's wife, novelist Geraldine Brooks, was far away at their home in Martha's Vineyard. The opening of her memoir, Memorial Days, describes in present tense fragmented phrases what it was like to be on the receiving end of a call from an ER doc whose voice is flat, exhausted, impatient, and who refers to her husband's body as it.

Horwitz's wife, novelist Geraldine Brooks, was far away at their home in Martha's Vineyard. The opening of her memoir, Memorial Days, describes in present tense fragmented phrases what it was like to be on the receiving end of a call from an ER doc whose voice is flat, exhausted, impatient, and who refers to her husband's body as it.

That call, Brooks reflects, was the first brutality in what I would learn is a brutal, broken system. Memorial Days is a beautifully modulated cry in the wilderness, an unsentimental contribution to the ever-growing pile of secular literature about grief, in which the end of life is punctuated by a period, not an ellipsis.

That call, Brooks reflects, was the first brutality in what I would learn is a brutal, broken system. Memorial Days is a beautifully modulated cry in the wilderness, an unsentimental contribution to the ever-growing pile of secular literature about grief, in which the end of life is punctuated by a period, not an ellipsis.

That call, Brooks reflects, was the first brutality in what I would learn is a brutal, broken system. Memorial Days is a beautifully modulated cry in the wilderness, an unsentimental contribution to the ever-growing pile of secular literature about grief, in which the end of life is punctuated by a period, not an ellipsis.

Brooks converted to Judaism when she married Horowitz some three decades earlier, and though Judaism doesn't offer her the assurance of an afterlife, it endows her with a spiritual language and vision. Memorial Days alternates between the immediate time after Horwitz's death and 2023, when Brooks flies to an isolated cabin on Flinders Island, off the coast of her native Australia.

Brooks converted to Judaism when she married Horowitz some three decades earlier, and though Judaism doesn't offer her the assurance of an afterlife, it endows her with a spiritual language and vision. Memorial Days alternates between the immediate time after Horwitz's death and 2023, when Brooks flies to an isolated cabin on Flinders Island, off the coast of her native Australia.

Brooks converted to Judaism when she married Horowitz some three decades earlier, and though Judaism doesn't offer her the assurance of an afterlife, it endows her with a spiritual language and vision. Memorial Days alternates between the immediate time after Horwitz's death and 2023, when Brooks flies to an isolated cabin on Flinders Island, off the coast of her native Australia.

The trip, Brooks tells us, represents an effort to escape what Hebrew scriptures call the Metsar, the narrow place. Tending to her two sons in the wake of their father's death and meeting her own writerly deadlines meant that Brooks couldn't surrender to grief. Here's how she explains the need to withdraw.

The trip, Brooks tells us, represents an effort to escape what Hebrew scriptures call the Metsar, the narrow place. Tending to her two sons in the wake of their father's death and meeting her own writerly deadlines meant that Brooks couldn't surrender to grief. Here's how she explains the need to withdraw.

The trip, Brooks tells us, represents an effort to escape what Hebrew scriptures call the Metsar, the narrow place. Tending to her two sons in the wake of their father's death and meeting her own writerly deadlines meant that Brooks couldn't surrender to grief. Here's how she explains the need to withdraw.

I am taking something that our culture has stopped freely giving, the right to grieve, to shut out the world and its demands. I've come to realize that my life since Tony's death has been one endless, exhausting performance. I have cast myself in a role, woman being normal. I have not allowed myself the wild wideness of an elaborate, florid, demonstrative grief.

I am taking something that our culture has stopped freely giving, the right to grieve, to shut out the world and its demands. I've come to realize that my life since Tony's death has been one endless, exhausting performance. I have cast myself in a role, woman being normal. I have not allowed myself the wild wideness of an elaborate, florid, demonstrative grief.

I am taking something that our culture has stopped freely giving, the right to grieve, to shut out the world and its demands. I've come to realize that my life since Tony's death has been one endless, exhausting performance. I have cast myself in a role, woman being normal. I have not allowed myself the wild wideness of an elaborate, florid, demonstrative grief.

Instead, it has been this long feeling of constriction, of holding it in and tamping it down and not letting it show. Brooks is far from clueless about the privilege that enables such a retreat. She grew up, as she tells us, in a blue-collar neighborhood of Sydney, in a house where all the furniture was secondhand.

Instead, it has been this long feeling of constriction, of holding it in and tamping it down and not letting it show. Brooks is far from clueless about the privilege that enables such a retreat. She grew up, as she tells us, in a blue-collar neighborhood of Sydney, in a house where all the furniture was secondhand.

Instead, it has been this long feeling of constriction, of holding it in and tamping it down and not letting it show. Brooks is far from clueless about the privilege that enables such a retreat. She grew up, as she tells us, in a blue-collar neighborhood of Sydney, in a house where all the furniture was secondhand.