The Farewell Chronicles: How We Really Respond to Death [Paperback]

Anneli S. Rufus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2005

The longer we live, the more of those around us will die. And while Hallmark sympathy cards and sad movies tell us we should grieve, death arouses a lot of other feelings in us as well—weird, unnerving, complicated feelings, which we’re terrified to talk about because we suspect that, if we did, we would be judged as crazy, cold, unfilial, unfaithful, or immature. So at these crucial times, facing the biggest and most momentous dramas of our lives, we lock away deep inside us our own true responses. In so doing, we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world and from whomever we’ve lost, from our hearts and minds and from the ultimate drama that is a death in the midst of life. Questioning our sanity, doubting our humanity, we hide, pretend—and even lie. This book helps us tell the truth—to ourselves, to the dead, and to each other. Revisiting the deaths of many people she has known—loved ones, casual acquaintances, children and adults, friends and enemies—prizewinning journalist Anneli Rufus gives powerful, eloquent voice to everyone who has ever lost anyone and whose reactions wouldn’t fit into the standard template of “feel sad, cry, then get over it.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After telling the disturbing story of a girl who was made a laughingstock by her dorm mates, then, one day, dropped dead in the library, Rufus writes: "When you torment others while they are alive, the last thing you imagine is that they might die before you can ask them for forgiveness." The girls who had teased her most cried the loudest over her demise, Rufus relates. Our feelings when someone dies, Rufus says, are not always pretty and don't always seem appropriate to others: apathy, guilt, greed, disgust, relief and foreboding. Rufus, a journalist (Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto), recounts numerous examples from her own life and the lives of others in order to explore these complex reactions to death: her apathy as a child when her emotionally remote grandmother died ("There goes our vacation," she thought); a friend's desire to get the best of her mother's possessions before her mother underwent a hysterectomy. This isn't a self-help book, but many readers will respond to, and identify with, Rufus's frank, sometimes startling, sometimes acerbic narratives. (Aug.)
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About the Author

ANNELI RUFUS is the author of three critically acclaimed nonfiction books—including, most recently, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto—and is the coauthor of five more. She and her writings have been featured in many newspapers and electronic media outlets worldwide, including NPR, the BBC, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the History Channel. She lives in California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Marlowe & Company (May 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569243816
• ISBN-13: 978-1569243817
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,183,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My interpretations are so much different, March 21, 2006

By 

toriokyo "librarian" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Farewell Chronicles: How We Really Respond to Death (Paperback)

Both the editorial reviews to me seem to imply that this book is not about dealing with deep and personal sorrow and it makes me wonder if they actually read it or if my perceptions are really so unique. Over the past two years I have lost people I loved. My mother died suddenly when I was not present, my father had alzheimers and died after a long illness in the hospital. We were on deathwatch for a week before he was removed from life support. This book touched me in ways I cannot explain and yet were so powerful I considered giving a copy of it to everyone who told me "this is for the best" or "it will be okay". As Joan Didion said in her equally powerful book The Year of Magical Thinking, in times of sadness she "turns to the literature" to make sense of it all. This is what I also do and I found The Farewell Chronicles does not deal with "petty" reactions to grief at all. It cuts through the gloss and fat and confronts the reader with difficult situations and emotions, she writes how our culture has erased traditional reactions to grief, the months of public mourning, the dress code, and how for thousands of years a funeral was something attended to by the whole tribe. She writes about how relief contrasts with guilt after years of caring for a chronically ill loved one, about how our apathy as a child turns to grief as we get old enough to understand death's impact. I could go on. This book brought me to tears many times. Perhaps this is because it is still so soon after my parent's death but it is also with a sense of relief that someone has put all these difficult emotions into words so eloquent I couldn't express it better myself. And of course, as my title says, I may just be different and this work is valuable for me in a different way it might be valuable for someone who has not experienced a recent loss. I'm just glad she wrote it and I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Farewell Chronicles, June 27, 2007

By 

Timothy W. Mcvey - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Farewell Chronicles: How We Really Respond to Death (Paperback)

An excellent perspective on death and grieving. Fresh views on an old topic. I had actually received this book form a friend when my Mother passed away and had recently purchased it for 3 of my family members.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Made me realize I wasn't so weird., July 4, 2006

By 

Sheila Gaylord (Adel, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Farewell Chronicles: How We Really Respond to Death (Paperback)

I got this book for myself after my father died. He had a long illness and I was one of his main caregivers. This book helped my realize that my lack of grief wasn't so weird as I had been led to believe. With everyone telling me of their sympathies and how "it will get better", I wasn't feeling much but a sense of relief. Both he and I had prepared and expected his death, it came as no surprise. I needed this book and plan on giving it to another friend who recently suffered a loss of a loved one. I found a great sense of help from its pages.