On Sale Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN 9780399179808, 0399179801
Trade Paperback | 336 pages
 
 
With a new foreword and reader’s guide—a validating new approach to the long-term grieving process that explains why we feel “stuck,” why that’s normal, and how shifting our perception of grief can help us grow—from the New York Times bestselling author of Motherless Daughters



“This is perhaps one of the most important books about grief ever written. It finally dispels the myth that we are all supposed to get over the death of a loved one.”—Claire Bidwell Smith, author of Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief

Because of the common but false assumption that grief should be time-limited, too many of us believe we’re grieving “wrong” when sadness resurges months or even years after a loss. The AfterGrief explains that the death of a loved one isn’t something most of us get beyond and grief is not an emotion to pass through on the way to “feeling better.” Instead, grief is in constant motion; it is tidal, easily and often reactivated. After the initial, acute pain of loss—when we enter “the aftergrief”—our grief gets folded into our developing identities, where it informs our thoughts, behaviors, and fears, and we inevitably carry it forward into everything that follows.

Drawing on her own encounters with the ripple effects of loss, as well as on interviews with dozens of researchers, therapists, and regular people, New York Times bestselling author Hope Edelman offers profound advice for reassessing loss and adjusting the stories we tell ourselves about its impact on our lives. With guidance for reframing a story of loss and even experiencing renewed growth in its wake, she demonstrates that though grief is a lifelong process, it doesn’t have to be a lifelong struggle.

Publication History: Ballantine HC (10/20)