Notes for the Everlost

July 1, 2018

In this part memoir, part handbook for the bereaved, Inglis (The Dread Crew; If I Were a Zombie) tells the raw, emotive story of surviving the loss of a child. Acting as a companion on the road no one chooses to travel, the author guides readers in paving a way through grief during the first year, then integrating (not healing) a new reality with a future one. Discussions on how to interact with well-meaning friends as well as deal with guilt round out her moving account. Inglis freely expresses her innermost thoughts and rages, thus bonding with those who have experienced similar sorrows, making her narrative particularly effective and compelling. VERDICT Highly recommended for anyone in the throes of grief, recent or past.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2018
A Nova Scotia-based writer and photographer offers ruminations about grief by a mother who lost a son.When Inglis' (If I were a Zombie, 2016, etc.) twin boys were born prematurely, one lived and one died after several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. The author intertwines reflective meditations and memories of her experience with her tenets on grief that she has accrued from the years living with her ever present pain and sense of loss. "I've been falling for years," she writes, "scrambling up again, sorting out in fits and spurts, freshly sorted reasonings collapsing in on themselves to make space for new wrack. I worry any mandate of mine is fresh paint on rotten wood." In a text geared primarily toward those who have struggled with the unthinkable loss of a child, Inglis shares how she coped, joining marches and giving speeches, getting angry at well-meaning friends, and dealing with the depression that afflicted her. Through her intense grief, she learned to understand what it means to be alive, and she effectively shares her insights with readers: "As the only animals who know we will die, how should we live? This is the sweet and futile agony. It's where every inner monologue comes from....Somehow, despite knowing loss will happen to us--and that our own ashes will someday be inside an urn on the lap of somebody who loved us--it's still incomprehensible." At times, Inglis gives her misery free rein, forcing readers to suffer alongside her as she relives the all-too-brief weeks she had with her son. In other passages, her wisdom rings out strong and clear and will strike a chord with anyone who has lost a loved one.An emotional and thought-provoking mix of poetic prose, memories, and beliefs on death, loss, and grief.

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