Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter
List: $6.99 | Sale: $4.90
Club: $3.49

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
A Novel

Author: Max Porter

Narrator: Jot Davies

Unabridged: 1 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/31/2017

Synopsis

Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar—a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised.

In this moment of violent despair they are visited by Crow—antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter. This self-described "sentimental bird," at once wild and tender, who "finds humans dull except in grief," threatens to stay with the wounded family until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss lessens with the balm of memories, Crow's efforts are rewarded and the little unit of three begins to recover: Dad resumes his book about the poet Ted Hughes; the boys get on with it, grow up.

Part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's extraordinary debut combines compassion and bravura style to dazzling effect. Full of angular wit and profound truths, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a startlingly original and haunting debut by a significant new talent.

About Max Porter

Max Porter is the author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, which won the International Dylan Thomas Prize and The Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award and was short-listed for The Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ilse on December 09, 2016

You Cannot Prevent the Birds of Sorrow from Flying over Your Head, but You Can Prevent Them from Building a Nest in Your Hair – Chinese Proverb I picked this up because the title struck me like a poem in itself, sounding like an titillating modulation on that wonderful poem Hope is the thing with fe......more

Goodreads review by Trish on October 27, 2015

Moving on, as a concept, is for stupid people, because any sensible person knows grief is a long-term project. This is a book about two boys and their father dealing with their mother's death. It's a very unusual book. Unusual because their "grief counsellor" is a crow. Yes, a black bird. Unusual b......more

Goodreads review by Angela M on November 01, 2019

When I first saw this book I kept thinking about how familiar the title sounded, and then I remembered the Emily Dickens poem “Hope is a Thing With Feathers “ is what rang a bell here - hope not grief. While this novella is about the depths of grief, I couldn’t help but have hope for these character......more

Goodreads review by Peter on September 28, 2016

This is no ordinary book. It's part short story, part myth, part poetry, partly narrated by a massive metafictional crow. It's unlike anything I've ever read and it's absolutely wonderful. We are plunged into the aftermath of a woman's tragic death. Her husband (a Ted Hughes scholar) and two young so......more

Goodreads review by Dannii on January 22, 2019

First Read: November 2016, Rating: 5 stars Second Read: January 2019, Rating: 5 stars Have you ever read something and thought of what an utter privilege it is that this book came into your life? I have. About this book. The synopsis of this sounds pretty simple – two boys and their father are grieving......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List