Amazon.com: The Rules of Inheritance (9781594630880): Claire Bidwell Smith: Books

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Smith lost both parents to cancer as a young adult. In this searing, devastating, and ultimately cathartic memoir, Smith uses Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ well-known five stages of grief as a narrative framework, beginning with denial, followed by anger, bargaining, depression, and ending with acceptance, as she moves back and forth chronologically in time. It is brutally honest as she becomes overwhelmed by grief and by the state of being “parentless.” She falls into a depressive funk. A car accident reminds her that she has no one to call when something like this happens. She drinks too much. She finds little reason to exist. Hearing Dave Eggers read from his best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), another memoir of loss, is a turning point in her recovery, as she becomes a volunteer coordinator at the Los Angeles branch of Eggers’ 826 Valencia Project, a nonprofit organization that helps children and adults develop writing skills. Today, Smith is a bereavement counselor. By facilitating grief groups, running workshops, and conducting one-on-one counseling sessions, she has come around, as she puts it, to the other side of grief. A powerful, moving memoir of overcoming grief and loss. --June Sawyers

Review

Forget everything you think you know about grief. Smith's memoir is the most honest book I've ever read about how loss unmoors, challenges and changes you, written in prose so exquisite, it could be poetry. Dazzlingly brave and absolutely true. -Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

In this deeply reflective, anguished memoir, L.A. journalist and psychotherapist Smith revisits the staggered death of her two parents from cancer as steps in the process of grieving.Smith's prose possesses a blistering power, rendering this youthful memoir an affecting journey into loss. --Publisher's Weekly

A brave and intelligent book about big loss and even bigger love. The gritty truth and hard won grace in this beautiful memoir astonishes me. -Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of WILD

This beautiful memoir is about what we inherit--the love as well as the sorrow and loss that are an inevitable part of human connection. In lucid, unsentimental prose, Claire Bidwell Smith maps out the story of her abrupt and rocky coming-of-age. This book will stay with me. --Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Devotion

Claire Bidwell Smith has written a beautiful book; it's a perfectly crafted story -- not about grief, but how to walk out of grief with your soul intact; it's not a lamentaion, but a lesson.THE RULES OF INHERITANCE should be required reading for anybody who's trying to get their arms around a big sadness. -Darin Strauss, Author of HALF A LIFE

"Gritty, poetic, and illuminating." –O Magazine

"A brilliant memoir." –BookReporter

"A powerful, moving memoir of overcoming grief and loss." –Booklist, Starred Review

"In this deeply reflective, anguished memoir, L.A. journalist and psychotherapist Smith revisits the staggered death of her two parents from cancer as steps in the process of grieving.Smith’s prose possesses a blistering power, rendering this youthful memoir an affecting journey into loss." –Publisher's Weekly

"Vivid, real and gripping." –BlackBook Magazine

"This beautiful memoir is about what we inherit–the love as well as the sorrow and loss that are an inevitable part of human connection. In lucid, unsentimental prose, Claire Bidwell Smith maps out the story of her abrupt and rocky coming-of-age with just the right amount of intimacy and distance. This book will stay with me." –Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Devotion

"Claire Bidwell Smith has written a beautiful book; it’s a perfectly crafted story — not about grief, but how to walk out of grief with your soul intact; it’s not a lamentation, but a lesson. The Rules of Inheritance should be required reading for anybody who’s trying to get their arms around a big sadness." –Darin Strauss, Author of Half a Life

"Forget everything you think you know about grief. Smith’s memoir is the most honest book I've ever read about how loss unmoors, challenges and changes you, written in prose so exquisite it could be poetry. Dazzlingly brave and absolutely true." –Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

"In The Rules of Inheritance, Claire Bidwell Smith takes us on a heartbreaking journey into grief’s deepest waters and then shows us how she found her way back to hope’s shores. With courageous vulnerability and uncompromising authenticity, Smith demonstrates how she transformed tragic misfortune into a rite of passage." –Jillian Lauren, author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem

"A searingly honest, poignant and poetic chronicle of love and loss, examining what it feels like to be ‘nobody’s most important person.’" –Susan Shapiro, author of Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart

"The Rules of Inheritance is a graceful and gritty, and ultimately quite uplifting, exploration of grief. Smith writes gorgeously about the existential tug between life and death, hope and fear, honesty and escape that defined more than a decade of her young life. At once profoundly personal and exquisitely universal, this story will touch all of us, not just those of us who have faced similar losses." –Aidan Donnelly Rowley, author of Life After Yes

"Written in a fluid, arresting style that grabs the reader and won't let go, The Rules of Inheritance serves as a reminder that we are not only capable of descending to the depths of human experience, but that we can rise back up again. It’s a great book." —James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces

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“ I was excited and apprehensive to read her book. ” Sherry | 25 reviewers made a similar statement

“ It is written in a beautiful poetic language, honest simple thought, with a keen eye. ” M | 18 reviewers made a similar statement

“ None of us will be immune to loss in this life, and the author's story and honesty in her own journey with loss is heartbreaking and healing all at once. ” Julia Tuchman | 14 reviewers made a similar statement

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful memoir February 2, 2012

By My2Babies

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This memoir is an incredibly sad one in which the author's parents both die from cancer by the time she is 25. It is a story of love and loss, numbing heartache and rebuilding a life through the grief. Although she stumbles for years, attempting to navigate through life with a giant gaping hole that permeates her entire being, she is able to emerge from the fog a strong and confident woman.

It is a fast read, gripping and heart pounding. Be prepared to finish the entire book in a sitting or two. And then read it again.

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, Reflective, Cleansing, Healing February 5, 2012

By Karen Lurie

I have been told that losing a parent is probably one of the most profound losses that a person will experience in their lives. Now I know what this loss feels like. Claire Bidwell-Smith's eloquent and honest memoir has been a true gift, a blessing, and a healing process for me as I try to understand my own journey and grieve the most recent passing of my own father. The kinship the author creates for her readers is absolutely stunning. I felt as if I was receiving my own personal grief counseling. I cried. I laughed. I felt inspired to be a better person, friend and mother. This is a must read for anyone who has experienced losing a parent and found themselves feeling lost, alone and empty. My life has been forever blessed in so many ways by this author's brilliantly written and very personal journey.

5.0 out of 5 stars Brave, Honest, Compelling February 2, 2012

By thexanaxdiary

I pre-ordered this book months ago. When I woke up this morning I had received an email that it had been downloaded to my kindle. I began devouring it early this morning as I'd been eagerly anticipating it's arrival since the author told me about it last year--when she was my and my late-husband's grief counselor in hospice.

Claire Bidwell Smith is as bright and eloquent in print as in person. In this memoir Bidwell Smith takes us through her journey of grief as both of her parents are diagnosed with--and sequentially taken by cancer--when she was a teen and young adult--and a serpentine journey it is! Brutally honest, sparing no details of ill-conceived decisions made out of denial and unwillingness to accept what she has either lost--or was losing at the time--was heart wrenching.

But the clarity and perspective from which this story is told hints from the beginning at an inevitable understanding somewhere down the line. It really tinges the whole story in a framework which keeps you turning the page, desperate to find out what this young woman does next as she copes with such devastating loss, and hoping she'll find the answers she is searching for.

I could't put this book down.