Winner of Pushcart Press Editors Award
As featured in David Brooks’ column in the New York Times
“This spellbinding examination of grief and love. . . captivates with its raw vulnerability. —Publisher’s Weekly
“An elegant, frank and tender memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Readers who have lost loved ones will be pulled back into those days of insanity and grief that follow death. Ascher describes these feelings with such intensity and rightness that readers may finally feel understood and in that way comforted." —Book List starred review
Barbara Lazear Ascher
Barbara Lazear Ascher is a former attorney and the author of five books of non-fiction, PLAYING AFTER DARK (Doubleday), THE HABIT OF LOVING (Random House), LANDSCAPE WITHOUT GRAVITY: A MEMOIR OF GRIEF, (Viking Penguin), DANCING IN THE DARK: ROMANCE, YEARNING AND THE SEARCH FOR THE SUBLIME (Harper Collins), and most recently, GHOSTING: A WIDOW’S VOYAGE OUT (Pushcart Press.)
She has been a columnist for THE NEW YORK TIMES and ELLE Magazine, a Contributing Editor at SELF Magazine, book reviewer for THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD, NPR essayist, and contributor to THE YALE REVIEW, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, THE NEW YORK TIMES SOPHISTICATED TRAVELER, TRAVEL AND LEISURE, GOURMET, VOGUE, and numerous other national journals.
Praise for Barbara’s writing
“What a wonderful book! This is one of the books I love.” —Pat Conroy
“Life assertive and life enhancing … a perceptive, witty and gifted writer.” —Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“Barbara Ascher is a tour guide extraordinaire, using her unique vision and formidable writing talent to show us the richness and beauty—and yes, true romance— of life on the planet Earth. I can’t think of anything in print that might better nourish a soul.” —Elizabeth Berg
“Ascher’s powerful story, brilliantly told…discovers that love may be even stronger than death.” —Elaine Pagels
“A beautifully written memoir of love and marriage, love and death…a contemporary classic.” —Amy Hempel
“You will be gripped by the joyous care and superb telling here.” —Naomi Shihab Nye
“Barbara Ascher has a serious mind and the gift of a light touch. … Her timely and perceptive pieces, written with grace and a nice sense of the absurd, carry considerable substance.” —Eudora Welty
“A warm, witty, very human voice that brightens any season.” —Annie Dillard
“Full of the surprises of truthfulness … the pleasures of intelligence.” —Shirley Hazzard
“It’s the glory of these essays that Ascher, like Montaigne … becomes Everyman.” —The Christian Science Monitor
“A lovely, deeply felt account of that crucial passage we all hope we will never have to go through —losing a life partner.” —Adam Hochschild