Customer Reviews

When Death Comes Suddenly

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The ultimate irony of the behavioral health field is that grief should be considered an area of speciality -- rather than the very backbone of mental health care and intervention. When reasonably considered, NO ONE goes to therapy who has not lost something or someone. But a speciality it is, and useful and readable books on the subject of grief are not overwhelming the bookstore shelves. Many of those that ARE on the shelves attempt to quantify grief, to treat it as a process with tidy stages and reliable timelines. Grieving people know better.

"When Death Comes Suddenly" quickly distinguishes itself from either sentimental platitudes or technical psychology. The strength of this book is the power of narrative. The authors have assembled eleven first-person accounts of surviving a sudden death. The editing of these accounts is exceptional: the accounts flow intimately, dramatically, and realistically. As a reader who has never experienced a sudden death, I found the stories to stir deep wells of empathy and emotion.

This book's success, I believe, will be similiar to the success of the alcohol recovery narratives in the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous. Especially in our culture of "grief denial," grieving people will find in these narratives pieces of their own stories -- AND a tacit permission and inspiration to tell them! For many broken-hearted survivors, this book could serve as the first antidote to the isolation that grief initially invites. (Someone out there understands exactly how empty and hopeless this feels!)

The authors follow-up the narratives with a brief outline of current discussion regarding grief and grief recovery: narrative, ritual, children, faith, legalities, gender, finance, etc. Here the authors do not break new ground. Rather than distract us with textbook, technical descriptions and psychodynamics, they instead let the narratives speak for themselves, and provide us with a lucid inventory of issues likely to confront survivors of sudden loss.

In addition to its usefulness for survivors, this book, too, would do well on a graduate school syllabus for students newly embarked in behavioral health careers, especially counseling and psychotherapy.

Tell our story is most often a positive, healing event. Authors Patricia Duncombe and Ann Titus have assembled compelling stories of sudden death and the agony and courage of survivors. In so doing, they will help other survivors 'assemble' and tell their important story. This book is, then, first and foremost an act of generosity.