We were given this book by someone who works in publishing whose taste we trust. We are sent quite a few books by publishers, but this was unusual in that the publisher doesn’t work for Faber, so had no reason to promote the book, other than because he loved it. It’s about a crow who helps two young boys and their father, a Ted Hughes scholar, come to terms with the sudden death of their mother and wife. Our publisher friend said he’d been skeptical about it at first (the idea of the crow…? How to pull that off? Would it be full of magic realism?), but that in fact the book was brilliant, a true one-off. He was right. Grief is the Thing with Feathers is very short and hard to pigeon-hole. It’s part prose-poem, part fable, and part essay on grief, but every sentence is startling. It’s sometimes extremely funny and a lot of the time terribly, gut-wrenchingly sad. We read it quickly all at once – it’s short – and had to go and lie down when we got to the end, we were wailing so much. But as well as making us sad, the book is also helpful in terms of grief and suffering and dealing with those big things, because it’s full of wisdom without pertaining to be expert or advisory at all. It’s a jewel of a book.
Max Porter, the writer, is giving a talk at the lovely Notting Hill bookshop, Lutyens and Rubinstein on 30th September at 7pm. He’s in Conversation with the poet Jack Underwood, whose debut volume of poetry is titled Happiness. Between that and grief, the two will no doubt have plenty to talk about. Do book now if you’re interested, as events at Lutyens and Rubinstein always sell out – the shop isn’t all that big and has an extremely loyal following.
