Grief is a thing with feathers

By: Max Porter
Location: FIC POR
Genre: It will make you sad in a clever way

I read this over the holidays, it was sad but it was hopeful. Any story with a mum dying in it leaving a dad and two boys is going to be sad, but what redeems it is the journey to realisation and continuation without minimising the pain of loss.
It is also has a cuteness. The conversations are real, subtle, obvious and cutting to the heart. I have two boys and a man.. I felt this book! I also have a daughter I wonder what amazingness she would have bought into this story- her voice would had added much. But thankfully my family is not this story- it belongs to others.


In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother’s sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal. In this extraordinary debut novella, Max Porter’s compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.
 ‘I found it utterly astonishing. Truly, truly remarkable. At once deeply affecting and fiercely intelligent, an elegy and a celebration …