Published on 24 December 2025
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Genre: Memoir
Reviewer: Julie
Why I chose this book:
I had read other books by Geraldine Brooks and love her writing style. I had also read a really good review of this book in one of the Saturday newspapers.
Quick Summary:
Geraldine Brooks has penned such a sad but also an exquisitely moving memoir focusing on the sudden death of her beloved husband Tony Horwitz, a Pulitzer winning journalist.
Receiving the news of his death via an impersonal phone call from the emergency department of a hospital in Washington D.C. she is sent reeling. Geraldine is at their home in Martha's Vineyard and flies to be by his side. She has to deal with the hospital hierarchy and strict processes introduced because of Covid which means some of the rituals Geraldine would expect to be involved in are not possible. She also has the daunting task of informing their two sons and their extended family as well as Tony's colleagues and friends of Tony's death.
Geraldine has so little time to process what has happened and to grieve and life moves on with a multitude of decisions and preparations that she has to oversee which takes all her waking moments.
Three years later, she takes the opportunity to retreat to remote Flinders Island to begin her 'memorial' days to try to come to an understanding of her unbelievable loss and to 'remember' her cherished husband and to 'feel the immensity of love.' It is on this beautiful but remote island that in her solitude Geraldine is able to honor Tony's impact on so many lives around him and to 'begin to feel an unfurling, an unclenching of the soul.'
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