All Seasons Pass: Grieving a Miscarriage (Paperback)

by Martha Manning (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover
As a psychologist and a woman, Martha Manning knows how shattering a lost pregnancy can be. Her story offers hope and healing to women suffering the same pain.

"We live in a culture that is incredibly dismissive of miscarriage as anything worth observing, grieving or commemorating.

"As a psychologist I know how important it is in a time of loss to have vehicles that help you grieve and give you comfort. More important, as a woman who has suffered two miscarriages, I know personally the solitary suffering that accompanies such loss. I know about the anger, the self-blame, the fears for the future.

"All Seasons Pass is a spiritual story about miscarriage-mine. I tell it in the form of a parable in which an old woman comforts a younger woman who thinks that if she just tries hard enough, and does everything perfectly, she will be in control of her life-specifically her precarious pregnancy. Through the loss of the pregnancy and the events that follow, the young woman learns not only about the ragged edges of grief, but the many sources of grace amidst that grief.

"May you find this story-my story-to be a gift of hope and healing."

--Martha Manning

About the Author
Martha Manning is a clinical psychologist and a writer, who, with All Seasons Pass, gives voice to a painful experience--losing two pregnancies. Manning hopes that sharing her pain will "form a bridge" to other suffering women.

"When a woman has a miscarriage its largely invisible, but its a loss that needs to be mourned," she says.

The author of four books including Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface and Chasing Grace: Reflections of a Catholic Girl, Grown Up, Manning displays what the Los Angeles Times calls a "brilliant combination of wit, irony and despair."

Manning received her bachelor's in psychology from the University of Maryland in 1974 and a masters and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Catholic University of America in 1978 and 1981. From 1981 to 1983, Manning was a postdoctoral fellow at McLean Hospital. A major teaching facility of Harvard Medical School, the hospital maintains the largest program of research in neuroscience and psychiatry of any private psychiatric hospital in the United States.

A frequent award winner, Manning won the Stephen Logan Award in 1999 from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, as a psychologist who made significant contributions to unraveling brain disorders. In 1996, she won the American Psychiatric Associations Presidential Award for Patient Advocacy.

As a regular columnist for Salt of the Earth magazine, Manning received numerous awards from both the Associated Church Press and the Catholic Press Association. In 1995, People magazine listed her memoir, Undercurrents, as one of ten books that year worth note. And in 1997, USA Today chose Chasing Grace as a "Best Bet."

Manning lectures throughout the United States and Canada, giving hundreds of talks to patient and mental health groups on topics such as depression, the impact of mental illness on families and the stigma of mental illness. Manning was featured on an Emmy-award winning HBO documentary "Dead Blue" that addressed how families and individuals can survive depression.

The parents of one child, Manning and her husband, Brian Depenbrock, live in Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Sorin Books; 1 edition (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893732088
• ISBN-13: 978-1893732087
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,585,674 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All Seasons Pass: Comfort in a Small Package, May 31, 2000

By	Calley Winslow (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

Grieving a miscarriage is such a different experience for any 2 women. I have miscarried 4 times and have remained childless. The devestation was subtle for me but nonetheless traumatic. Manning was able to offer insight and spirituality where I couldn't find any. It is not a "how to" book but more of a sharing; a common bond that touches so many women. This is the type of book that you buy, read and put on the shelf but pull it down the minute you hear of a friend's miscarriage. I have lent my copy out 3 times and each time it has come back, the readers have been grateful and truly touched by Manning's words. There is no right or wrong way to grieve but Manning showed that a miscarriage does indeed need to be grieved and not minimized as so many people did to me. I love this book and recommend it to any woman -

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Here's the first chapter, where's the rest?, February 20, 2002

By	alexxcz "alexxcz" (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews

While this book had some nice passages, it was just too short. It felt more like a first chapter, or an outline for the real book to come. It seemed overpriced, and overbilled for the actual thing.

I'm happy to hear that the book has brought comfort to some--but I was disapointed by it. I recommend another book "Silent Sorrow" to mothers who carry sorrow instead of the babies they expected to hold. Peace to all who grieve.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars All Seasons Must Pass, April 9, 2000

By	Julie J. (Florence, AL) - See all my reviews

When purchasing this book I was expecting to find a book that whould help with the grief associated with miscarriage. The author tells her own personal story and then talks about grief and some of the reactions a person might expect to encounter from family and friends. She compares the grief to a stormy beach season, and how the beach recovers and remains for many years after the devasting season. It is a very brief book, and really does not provide much information that I have not encountered in more helpful books such as Miscarriage: Woman Sharing from Their Hearts by Allen and Marks.I do not recommend this book to women who have gone through years of infertility only to miscarry their first and only child. or to any one who has lost their only child. The author deals with her own experience which were subsequent miscarriages 7 years after the birth of her first child, which is still living. I have found that the grief experienced by women who already have a living child is quite different from that of women who do not have any living children. Those of us struggling for a first child still have not arrived at a point in which the season will pass, nor can we even begin to see the lighthouse on the horizon to guide us free from the storms of grief that plague us. The book was so insubstantial and did not provide much helpful information at all, seek out the book recommended above instead.