An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

"Which is to say:

I want it too, the impossible lighter side book. I will always be a woman whose first child died, and I won't give up either that grievance or the bad jokes of everyday life. I will hold onto both forever. I want a book that acknowledges life goes on but that death goes on, too, that a person who is dead is a long, long story. You move on from it but the death will never disappear from view. Your friends may say 'Time heals all wounds'. No, it doesn't, but eventually you'll feel better. You'll be yourself again. Your child will still be dead. The frivolous parts of your personality, stubborner than you'd imagined, will grow up through the cracks in your soul. The sad lady at the Florida library meant: the lighter side is not that your child has died-no lighter side to that-but that the child lived and died in this human realm, with its breathtaking sadness and dumb punch lines and hungry seagulls."

This is the best, saddest book ever.

I loved Elizabeth McCracken's novels (The Giant's House and Niagara Falls All Over Again) so much I was delighted to see that she had a memoir. I was somewhat less delighted when I realized the subject matter.

"Somehow every one of those things happened at exactly the right time for me. This is why you need everyone you know after a disaster, because there is not one right response. It's what paralyzes people around the grief-stricken, of course, the idea that there are right things to say and wrong things and it's better to say nothing than something clumsy."

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination tells the story of her first pregnancy which sadly ended with a stillborn baby. It's a tribute to McCracken's skill that I felt like I shouldn't be reading this memoir, it's so personal and frank. Especially since the first time I read it (I've now read it three times) was on of those flawless stunners of a spring day. For someone to share the exquisite pain of their soul when outside was bursting with life just seemed wrong. Better to read it on a raw, cold day like today. Better still to read it at 2am when you can't sleep for troubles of your own.

"As for me, I believe that if there's a God-and I am as neutral on the subject as possible-then the most basic proof of his existence is black humor. What else explains it, that odd, reliable comfort that billows up at the worst moments, like a beautiful sunset woven out of the smoke over a bombed city."

I didn't cry when I read it, I was moved way beyond tears. Her tone, which is matter of fact without sacrificing any feeling, prevents it from careening into the purple and her calm diagramming of loss makes her experience relevant to everyone, even if you're not a parent. As Mary Oliver writes:

"some deep

memory of pleasure, some cutting

knowledge of pain".

Those are all you need to appreciate this book. If you have ever lost anyone you loved, I recommend this book to you.