The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (and Learning to Tell the Truth about It) (Paperback)

~ Patty Dann (Author), Sallie Sanborn (Afterword)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dann, the author of Mermaids, had been married almost 10 years to her Dutch husband, Willem, when he was suddenly diagnosed with a fatal brain cancer. In this memoir (the cute title undercuts the serious subject), Dann explains how the plans they'd so lovingly made—their future together—would abruptly come to an end. Worse, Dann had no idea how she'd explain to their three-year-old son, Jake, whom they adopted from Lithuania, that his father would begin to act strangely, that he would become very sick and eventually die. Fortunately, she enlisted the aid of an understanding child therapist, Sallie Sanborn, who taught Dann how to give Jake permission to grieve. While her son's reactions were Dann's focus, she also had to come to terms with the man she loved losing his language skills, his mobility, his thought processes, and their happy marriage coming to an end. Dann lets her story unfold as a series of short vignettes—some triggered by a mundane object, others by something someone said. Bittersweet and painfully honest, Dann's memoir of how she had to leave one life and begin another is remarkable. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

 Click here to watch a live interview with Patty Dann on CBS Sunday Morning News. *     *     *

"The most protective parent must one day reveal the hard truth that life ends. For Patty Dann, that wrenching task came sooner than any mother would wish. Dann's memoir is filled with brave arguments for accepting death and may underscore the very natural difficulty people have in doing so. Evocatively titled . . . striking."—New York Times Book Review

Click here to read more about The Goldfish Went on Vacation in the New York Times "Modern Love" column. *     *     *

"Patty Dann writes movingly of losing her husband Willem to cancer. In this affecting memoir, Dann chronicles Willem's quick decline and her own struggle to help three-year-old Jake deal with losing his dad. No goldfish-went-on-vacation euphemizer, she opts for straight talk while allowing Jake his talismans—Band-Aids plastered on his toy trucks, beach glass arranged in an intricate pattern on his parents' bed. . . . Dann brings home the enormity of their loss but you get the feeling they're two who, together, will survive just fine."—People

"What sets Patty Dann's volume apart is the remarkable three-year-old boy at its heart, and how, with the help of a smart therapist, he deals with the death of his father from brain cancer."—USA Today

"Dann lets her story unfold as a series of short vignettes—some triggered by a mundane object, others by something someone said. Bittersweet and painfully honest, Dann's memoir of how she had to leave one life and begin another is remarkable."—Publishers Weekly



"Writing with grace and candor, and vivid bursts of humor, Ms. Dann shares the hard-won wisdom that the way to speak about death is honestly and openly. A wonderfully generous and helpful book."—Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life

"A lovely, beautifully rendered memoir. A great wisdom resides in these short chapters, and Dann presents it in straightforward, succinct, crystalline prose."—Fenton Johnson, author of Geography of the Heart: A Memoir

"Patty Dann writes about love and loss in a way that is stirring and important. Like Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, this book takes readers through experiences they might be frightened to imagine, and it does so with poise, wit, and originality."—Meg Wolitzer, author of The Position and Surrender, Dorothy

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Trumpeter (December 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590305647
• ISBN-13: 978-1590305645
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #323,411 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lovely little book, February 11, 2007

By	Christine Quiriy (Littleton, MA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (and Learning to Tell the Truth about It) (Hardcover)

Dann writes about the last year of her family's life in a series of vignettes. It's the story of how Dann met her husband, Willem, how she met her best friend at camp, how she and Willem decided to adopt a child, how the three of them lived their brief life together and loved each other. It is the heartbreaking story of how Dann kept life normal for her three year old son during the last year of his daddy's life, despite the tragedy relentlessly unfolding. Includes scenes from life after Willem's death, and an afterword by Sallie Sanborn, the counselor who helped Patty and Jake Dann get through the hard time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Now, we are two, June 14, 2007

By	Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (and Learning to Tell the Truth about It) (Hardcover)

In a support group for families dealing with a terminally ill member, a woman reveals that she had to flush her son's goldfish, but couldn't bear to tell him the truth about it, so her story because that "the goldfish went on vacation."

For author Patty Dann and her preschool son Jake, as dad Willem dies of a brain tumor, "now, we are two."

It's only natural that prolific essayist and writing workshop instructor Patty Dann would publish a book on the topic of loss when she was widowed after less than a decade of marriage. The author observes that with a 3-year-old just out of a stroller, and a husband with a degenerative brain tumor, she may soon be pushing two children around. The short, delicate chapters are peppered with poignant insights and frank discussions about death, but the worth as a whole strives too hard to be "that perfect pocket book for giving to a friend coping with loss."

I personally looked for just such a book when my best friend gave birth to a baby girl doctors predicted would live less than three years. I might have been tempted by this title had it been out, but with four years of maturity (and a still relatively stable, growing four-year-old child for my best friend), I would never select such an unremarkable, silly book to attempt to comfort a friend.

Dann does deal with a unique aspect of loss--she has a year to adjust to becoming a widow and a single parent, as she watches her husband lose his mental and physical faculties. Her ideas, like having family members write letters to her son to be opened in a decade, on his thirteenth birthday, help remind the reader how much we need to celebrate and cherish those around us every day. As a whole, though, the essays add up to little more than a cute book with a fish on the cover. For hard-hitting personal soul-searching about the death of a spouse and father, I would recommend Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful, insightful information for parents on teaching children about death and dying, February 14, 2007

By	Julee Rudolf "book snob" (Oak Harbor, WA USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)

This review is from: The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (and Learning to Tell the Truth about It) (Hardcover)

Patty Dann's memoir, which could be described as a short collection of extremely short stories (the longest spans just four pages) about life and death, is part self-help for those trying to assist a child in coping with the terminal illness or death of a loved-one; part personal history - childhood, adulthood, courtship, marriage, motherhood, (her husband's) illness, widowhood; and part death-related memories of others and excerpts from her students' written stories. The writing is clean, correct, and except for a handful of great sentences and phrases, unremarkable. Because of the nontraditional, seemingly unintuitive way she chooses to allow her three-year-old son, Jake, to be made aware of the facts concerning his father's terminal illness and imminent death, he seems to understand and deal with the situation better than might be expected. Both the author and the "Child Development/Child Life Specialist" who counseled her son, provide useful, insightful information about helping children appropriately handle issues related to death and dying.