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Gracefully Gone
Gracefully Gone is the fusion of two journals: my father, Matthew L Coppola Sr.’s and mine. My father’s journal was written in 1982, two years after his diagnosis and remission with brain cancer. Mine was written in 1990-1991, roughly eight years later, as he began to die. In Gracefully Gone I chronicle my twenty-one year old pursuit of life and all the bitter and amusingly confusing angst that accompanies being twenty-one during the last six months of my father’s struggle towards death.
What I am hoping, what I am counting on, is that my life, my father’s life and our story, might be meaningful to strangers; or perhaps, if not meaningful, then at the very least, identifiable, relatable and at times, humorously understandable. Gracefully Gone is not about death, it is about the journey of a family, specifically, the journey of a young girl trying to find her way in the wake of growing up in the looming shadow of cancer.
Gracefully Gone is written as a prayer for all the families, all the children too young to understand and for all the victims of this all too often insurmountable war to know they are not alone. After all, the sad fact is in the world we live in today there are no strangers to cancer and there are certainly no strangers to struggle and loss.Even though my mother and brother went through the same experience as I, we experienced it very differently. It was as if my father was the LOVEBOAT and we three were on our own separate lifeboats surrounding him, each of us handling our grief privately. Perhaps, if we’re really lucky, Gracefully Gone might allow someone a little peace and some comfort knowing that even though they are on their own lifeboats they are in an ocean full of them.
What I am hoping, what I am counting on, is that my life, my father’s life and our story, might be meaningful to strangers; or perhaps, if not meaningful, then at the very least, identifiable, relatable and at times, humorously understandable. Gracefully Gone is not about death, it is about the journey of a family, specifically, the journey of a young girl trying to find her way in the wake of growing up in the looming shadow of cancer.
Gracefully Gone is written as a prayer for all the families, all the children too young to understand and for all the victims of this all too often insurmountable war to know they are not alone. After all, the sad fact is in the world we live in today there are no strangers to cancer and there are certainly no strangers to struggle and loss.Even though my mother and brother went through the same experience as I, we experienced it very differently. It was as if my father was the LOVEBOAT and we three were on our own separate lifeboats surrounding him, each of us handling our grief privately. Perhaps, if we’re really lucky, Gracefully Gone might allow someone a little peace and some comfort knowing that even though they are on their own lifeboats they are in an ocean full of them.
206 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
3 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Alicia Coppola
1 book9 followersYou know Alicia Coppola from CBS’s Jericho, the only television show in a decade to be renewed after cancellation due to popular fan response. You also know her from the 141 episodes of primetime television that she has done in her twenty-year career: From the role of Lorna Devon on NBC’s long running soap opera Another World for which she was nominated twice and won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Younger Leading Actress to starring in television series such as TNT’s Bull, NBC’s Cold Feet, to name a few and she is highly recognizable for her roles in CBS’s CSI and Two And A Half Men, NBC’s Law And Order; Criminal Intent, Crossing Jordan, USA’s SUITS and the Feature film National Treasure 2, Book Of Secrets. She has recently recurred on ABC FAMILY’s Nine Lives Of Chloe King and USA’s Common Law. You will see Alicia very soon in the much anticipated spin-off pilot of MTV’s Teen Wolf about which she is very excited. It brings her back to her home network where she began her career during her college years at NYU, as the hostess of the iconic popular MTV game show Remote Control alongside co-host Colin Quinn.
You might also know Alicia’s voice as she has an extensive voice over career, as the tag voice of Acura, the voice of Kikkoman, the trailer of Pedro Almodovar’s Volver, and “She Hulk” in the Iron Man games to name just a few.
Here is what you may not know about Alicia. She is a published author. Her book Gracefully Gone was launched June 2013 in time for Father’s Day on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. Gracefully Gone is a decade long dialogue between her father Matt, and Alicia as he lay dying from brain cancer while she struggled to grow up within that murky shadow. It is a fusion of two journals; her father’s writings from his 1980 diagnosis until his 1983 remission and Alicia’s journal from 1989-1991 as she cared for him until his passing. There is more writing to come from Alicia, as she is currently working on new material influenced by her other career as a wife and mother to her three daughters.
Alicia is from Long Island, NY and holds a Bachelors Degree from NYU in Political Anthropology and Philosophy. She currently lives in California with her husband and their three daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 6, 2013
I began reading Gracefully Gone knowing full well that my expectations were biased. For years, I've been a fan of the actress who wrote it and having lost my own father at a young age, I knew I would relate to the subject matter all too well. I expected it to hit close to home. It did. I expected to cry. And yes, I cried. But I also laughed (wasn't expecting that!) and I gasped at her candour. I was surprised by the amount of jealousy I felt when reading her father's words, wishing that my own father had left that legacy.
Throughout the book, I found myself wishing that someone would throw out a life preserver to this drowning kid but I soon realized that she would have just chucked it aside and swam for shore on her own anyhow. I'm glad she found there was someone waiting to wrap her in a warm towel.
A realistic and compelling read. I highly recommend.
Throughout the book, I found myself wishing that someone would throw out a life preserver to this drowning kid but I soon realized that she would have just chucked it aside and swam for shore on her own anyhow. I'm glad she found there was someone waiting to wrap her in a warm towel.
A realistic and compelling read. I highly recommend.
July 7, 2013
I'm sitting here with my first cup of coffee of the morning and mulling over a book I finished last night, Gracefully Gone, by Alicia Coppola. Honestly, I've been mulling over this book and writing this post since I first started reading it last week.
Normally, I don't write reviews—I might leave one on Amazon, as I did for Gracefully Gone, because I know those ratings and reviews can definitely help, but in terms of writing in-depth reviews on books, it's not something I particularly enjoy doing. Maybe it's because I know how much effort and sweat and tears and heart go into the creation of a book for me to turn what's often a very critical eye on it. Call me a softy, but I can't do it.
But Gracefully Gone has proven to be an exception almost from the get-go. Not simply because it's prompting me to write about it, but because I even read it in the first place. You see, memoirs generally aren't my cuppa—odd, since I actually love biographies, but I am a contrary creature. (Go on, look surprised.) But Gracefully Gone isn't simply just another memoir either—it's equal parts memoir, journal, and epistolary account. It chronicles the journey of Matthew Coppola, Sr. and his daughter, the young girl/woman who would grow up to become actress Alicia Coppola, as they navigated his cancer diagnosis, treatment, and eventually, the last months of his life.
It was a tremendous read—and yet, I still can't review it, not in any traditional sense. It would... cheapen the experience, if that makes any sense. So I beg your tolerance as I record my reactions in the manner in which I heard them in my head as I read, which was... a chatty, conversational letter. Kind of apropos, no?
All right, then, here we go.
Dear Alicia,
Well, fellow writer, I finished reading Gracefully Gone last night. And as it has from the first moment I started reading, it has stayed with me. For various reasons—the style (since you are a wonderfully evocative writer), the story, the events, but most of all, because of a line you used more than once and that resonated: "There but for the grace of God..."
I know in this increasingly transparent society in which we live—governed as it is by the media, social and otherwise—it's easy to feel as if we know someone, even if an actual physical meeting has never taken place. I think, too, that feeling must be even more pervasive when you're in an industry that in any way puts you in the public eye. I know I've experienced it as a writer whom like, six people know, so I can only imagine what it must be like for someone like you, who works in a more visual/communications-oriented media.
It's a little weird, isn't it?
Personally, I know I've enjoyed watching you as an actor for many years, from the standpoint of "Oh, it's that girl... I like her work," and when I ran across your account on Twitter, I decided you looked like a cool chick to follow and indeed, you were. I've enjoyed "talking" with you and exchanging tweets about wine and kids and, well... laundry. *spits three times and tosses holy water* But never would I have presumed to think I "know" you.
But then you mentioned Gracefully Gone and my interest was piqued. Okay, true confession: I can be a horrid snob about writing and people who blithely say they write or are writing a book. I don't know—I think it has something to do with the fact that out of all of the creative pursuits, writing is the one most easily dismissed. Music, acting, painting—most people acknowledge that all of those require inherent talent and even training—but there's just something about writing... I think it's because we all know how to write in some way, shape, or form. After all, we're all taught how to write in school, right? The dreaded five-paragraph essay and later on, term papers, and depending how far we get in our educations, theses and dissertations. *spits three times again* So there's this misconception that writing is "easy" or requires little effort and even less talent.
I already know you know that for the utter bullshit it is—besides, that's a soapbox for another day. I only mention it... well, hell, I'm not quite sure why. Maybe so you know a little more about where I'm coming from. Hi, I'm Barb, I'm a writer and I respect others who work their asses off on the craft as well and who have the balls to put themselves out there.
Moving along then.
I got my copy of the book a few days after its release and began reading it. And got to the first instance of "There but for the grace of God..." and that's about when I found myself thinking, "Yeah... I know her. I know her very well," because in many ways, you and I, again, I won't presume to say we're the same, per se, but let's just say we've led very similar lives.
In a nutshell, we're the same age, both born in NYC (although I was raised in Miami), both married, both mothers, both engaged in careers that can suck your soul out if you let it, and both essentially had our childhoods come to screeching halts at approximately the same age. Mine was due to divorce rather than illness, but in may ways, the results paralleled each other with the exception of your father was still there and still cared for you whereas I went from Daddy's Little Girl to a hated obligation in what seemed like a heartbeat. But I, too, had a mother who was emotionally needy and whose personal dramas took precedence (although the missile tossed at my head wasn't a hairbrush—it was a Dr. Scholl's sandal. Remember those wooden fuckers? Good thing her aim sucked.)
I, too, had to become an adult far too young, taking on responsibilities no twelve year-old should have to shoulder; I, too, dealt with the weight of familial obligation and resented the hell out of it; I, too, wasn't particularly liked in junior high or high school and was an easy target; I, too, found outlets in which I could find escape from the Beautiful People who seemed to live only to make my life hell and because of the nature of the escapes I found, considered me an even larger target. (Love the term "sleeper cell," btw—so accurate.) The primary difference between our experiences, other than their source, was that for better or worse, you attracted attention from boys/men whereas I was both painfully homely and painfully shy (or as my friends love to say, even to this day, "Barb, you carry about you this palpable air of 'come too close and I'll cut you.'").
But ultimately, it would appear the pervasive sense of loneliness and rootlessness was similar for both of us.
By the time I got near the end of Gracefully Gone my neck was sore from nodding my head like a bobblehead doll. So much, Alicia... so much not simply paralleled, but even crossed paths with my own life—even at the very end when you were relating the story of being at a birthday party for one of your daughters' classmates and feeling a bit lost and bewildered when it came to commiserating about teenaged foibles for which you had no frame of reference. I still live in fear that people are laughing at me and I get really fucking tired of feeling like the Universe is piling on me because I'm somehow "strong enough" to take it. Oh, and yeah, I marvel at my kids and know that I definitely do not parent in the way in which I was parented. (My favorite threat: "You're about to make me say something that will make me sound like Grandma and you know I hate that!")
End result—when I say, as I did when I tweeted you, that you touched me, it wasn't simply written as some bullshit line to make an impression. I don't tend to say things I don't mean—life's too fucking short (another thing in which it would appear we're similar—our propensity for colorful language)—so when I say you're a hell of a writer, when I say you touched me, please, rest assured, I mean it.
Reading your words was in so many ways like reading my own. When I shed a tear as I read, I wasn't just crying for the girl you'd been—the girl who went through so much and lost so much—but I was finally able to cry for the girl I'd been. The girl I never got to be.
And yeah, I look at who I am now, a little dented, a little tarnished (or as I like to think of it on the good days, with a lovely patina), and know I wouldn't change things either.
For someone to make me feel all of that? Hell, for someone to get me to acknowledge it, out loud, where the possibility exists someone might point and mock?
Yeah, you're a hell of a writer.
I hope one day we get the opportunity to finally cross paths, face-to-face, and oh, the stories we'll share over a nice glass (okay, bottle) of wine.
And if not, well then, that's okay, too. I'll still tweet you about how much I hate laundry.
Rock on, fellow writer.
Barb
Alicia Coppola
Normally, I don't write reviews—I might leave one on Amazon, as I did for Gracefully Gone, because I know those ratings and reviews can definitely help, but in terms of writing in-depth reviews on books, it's not something I particularly enjoy doing. Maybe it's because I know how much effort and sweat and tears and heart go into the creation of a book for me to turn what's often a very critical eye on it. Call me a softy, but I can't do it.
But Gracefully Gone has proven to be an exception almost from the get-go. Not simply because it's prompting me to write about it, but because I even read it in the first place. You see, memoirs generally aren't my cuppa—odd, since I actually love biographies, but I am a contrary creature. (Go on, look surprised.) But Gracefully Gone isn't simply just another memoir either—it's equal parts memoir, journal, and epistolary account. It chronicles the journey of Matthew Coppola, Sr. and his daughter, the young girl/woman who would grow up to become actress Alicia Coppola, as they navigated his cancer diagnosis, treatment, and eventually, the last months of his life.
It was a tremendous read—and yet, I still can't review it, not in any traditional sense. It would... cheapen the experience, if that makes any sense. So I beg your tolerance as I record my reactions in the manner in which I heard them in my head as I read, which was... a chatty, conversational letter. Kind of apropos, no?
All right, then, here we go.
Dear Alicia,
Well, fellow writer, I finished reading Gracefully Gone last night. And as it has from the first moment I started reading, it has stayed with me. For various reasons—the style (since you are a wonderfully evocative writer), the story, the events, but most of all, because of a line you used more than once and that resonated: "There but for the grace of God..."
I know in this increasingly transparent society in which we live—governed as it is by the media, social and otherwise—it's easy to feel as if we know someone, even if an actual physical meeting has never taken place. I think, too, that feeling must be even more pervasive when you're in an industry that in any way puts you in the public eye. I know I've experienced it as a writer whom like, six people know, so I can only imagine what it must be like for someone like you, who works in a more visual/communications-oriented media.
It's a little weird, isn't it?
Personally, I know I've enjoyed watching you as an actor for many years, from the standpoint of "Oh, it's that girl... I like her work," and when I ran across your account on Twitter, I decided you looked like a cool chick to follow and indeed, you were. I've enjoyed "talking" with you and exchanging tweets about wine and kids and, well... laundry. *spits three times and tosses holy water* But never would I have presumed to think I "know" you.
But then you mentioned Gracefully Gone and my interest was piqued. Okay, true confession: I can be a horrid snob about writing and people who blithely say they write or are writing a book. I don't know—I think it has something to do with the fact that out of all of the creative pursuits, writing is the one most easily dismissed. Music, acting, painting—most people acknowledge that all of those require inherent talent and even training—but there's just something about writing... I think it's because we all know how to write in some way, shape, or form. After all, we're all taught how to write in school, right? The dreaded five-paragraph essay and later on, term papers, and depending how far we get in our educations, theses and dissertations. *spits three times again* So there's this misconception that writing is "easy" or requires little effort and even less talent.
I already know you know that for the utter bullshit it is—besides, that's a soapbox for another day. I only mention it... well, hell, I'm not quite sure why. Maybe so you know a little more about where I'm coming from. Hi, I'm Barb, I'm a writer and I respect others who work their asses off on the craft as well and who have the balls to put themselves out there.
Moving along then.
I got my copy of the book a few days after its release and began reading it. And got to the first instance of "There but for the grace of God..." and that's about when I found myself thinking, "Yeah... I know her. I know her very well," because in many ways, you and I, again, I won't presume to say we're the same, per se, but let's just say we've led very similar lives.
In a nutshell, we're the same age, both born in NYC (although I was raised in Miami), both married, both mothers, both engaged in careers that can suck your soul out if you let it, and both essentially had our childhoods come to screeching halts at approximately the same age. Mine was due to divorce rather than illness, but in may ways, the results paralleled each other with the exception of your father was still there and still cared for you whereas I went from Daddy's Little Girl to a hated obligation in what seemed like a heartbeat. But I, too, had a mother who was emotionally needy and whose personal dramas took precedence (although the missile tossed at my head wasn't a hairbrush—it was a Dr. Scholl's sandal. Remember those wooden fuckers? Good thing her aim sucked.)
I, too, had to become an adult far too young, taking on responsibilities no twelve year-old should have to shoulder; I, too, dealt with the weight of familial obligation and resented the hell out of it; I, too, wasn't particularly liked in junior high or high school and was an easy target; I, too, found outlets in which I could find escape from the Beautiful People who seemed to live only to make my life hell and because of the nature of the escapes I found, considered me an even larger target. (Love the term "sleeper cell," btw—so accurate.) The primary difference between our experiences, other than their source, was that for better or worse, you attracted attention from boys/men whereas I was both painfully homely and painfully shy (or as my friends love to say, even to this day, "Barb, you carry about you this palpable air of 'come too close and I'll cut you.'").
But ultimately, it would appear the pervasive sense of loneliness and rootlessness was similar for both of us.
By the time I got near the end of Gracefully Gone my neck was sore from nodding my head like a bobblehead doll. So much, Alicia... so much not simply paralleled, but even crossed paths with my own life—even at the very end when you were relating the story of being at a birthday party for one of your daughters' classmates and feeling a bit lost and bewildered when it came to commiserating about teenaged foibles for which you had no frame of reference. I still live in fear that people are laughing at me and I get really fucking tired of feeling like the Universe is piling on me because I'm somehow "strong enough" to take it. Oh, and yeah, I marvel at my kids and know that I definitely do not parent in the way in which I was parented. (My favorite threat: "You're about to make me say something that will make me sound like Grandma and you know I hate that!")
End result—when I say, as I did when I tweeted you, that you touched me, it wasn't simply written as some bullshit line to make an impression. I don't tend to say things I don't mean—life's too fucking short (another thing in which it would appear we're similar—our propensity for colorful language)—so when I say you're a hell of a writer, when I say you touched me, please, rest assured, I mean it.
Reading your words was in so many ways like reading my own. When I shed a tear as I read, I wasn't just crying for the girl you'd been—the girl who went through so much and lost so much—but I was finally able to cry for the girl I'd been. The girl I never got to be.
And yeah, I look at who I am now, a little dented, a little tarnished (or as I like to think of it on the good days, with a lovely patina), and know I wouldn't change things either.
For someone to make me feel all of that? Hell, for someone to get me to acknowledge it, out loud, where the possibility exists someone might point and mock?
Yeah, you're a hell of a writer.
I hope one day we get the opportunity to finally cross paths, face-to-face, and oh, the stories we'll share over a nice glass (okay, bottle) of wine.
And if not, well then, that's okay, too. I'll still tweet you about how much I hate laundry.
Rock on, fellow writer.
Barb
Alicia Coppola
January 10, 2023
I thought this book was very relatable as my sister and I took care of our father while he was in hospice care at her home from Sept 2022-Dec 5th of 2022, when he passed. I envy that he journaled, as I wished I would have had my dad write down his feelings and thoughts toward those last months. You did a great job telling your story and I am so sorry you had to go through all that, and again!
Throughout reading this whole book, I felt so connected to the both of you right away, that I just couldn’t put it down and I needed to keep reading to find out what happened next in both of your lives.
An eye opener that even celebrities have awful things happen to them and their families, and I am so glad to see that you helped take care of him and put yourself on the back burner (not to sound mean, if you know what I mean), that type of dedication and selflessness doesn’t go unnoticed.
Throughout reading this whole book, I felt so connected to the both of you right away, that I just couldn’t put it down and I needed to keep reading to find out what happened next in both of your lives.
An eye opener that even celebrities have awful things happen to them and their families, and I am so glad to see that you helped take care of him and put yourself on the back burner (not to sound mean, if you know what I mean), that type of dedication and selflessness doesn’t go unnoticed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 7, 2014
You think, "memoir" equals either boring or so extraordinary that no mortal could identify him/herself with that person? Well, think again, or rather read Alicia Coppola's book Gracefully Gone". It's the fusion of two journals: her father's, Matthew L. Coppola Sr. and her own, linked by his fight against brain cancer.
It's a situation almost everybody can relate to. Lucky people, who haven't lost a loved one to a disease, be it cancer, Alzheimer's or any other life-changing and -taking illness! But even then, it is possible to feel for the 12 year old girl who tries to belong while her emotional vulnerability - having to deal with the fear of losing her father - makes her "a gazelle with a twisted ankle lying just outside a lion's den" (p. 37). Or with the teenager who is desperately trying to find an anchor. Or, of course, the young woman of 22 years, who tends to her father in the final five months of his life, torn between nerve-wracking dreams and most precious moments like a father's smile, that keep one going in such a situation which would consume everybody, let alone a young adult who already lost her childhood to the impending loss. As Alicia puts it: "Today was a hard one: A good one because I got to spend all day with my father but a hard one because I got to spend all day with my father." (p. 121).
"Gracefully Gone" is split in four parts, the memories of her father, which are interspersed throughout the book, her own recalling the years from 1980 (when he was diagnosed with brain cancer) to August 1990, her journal from August 1990 to January 1991, and an epilogue 2013.
While reading this book, I partly felt like watching a movie, or reading a novel and I had to remind myself that it is in fact a true story. Not because it's so unreal - it isn't, as I stated above - but because it's written in such a nonchalant, direct, non-artificial way, that it was as easy and entertaining to read as a novel should be. It made me not want to lay the book aside until I finished it. Although the whole situation is, of course, sad and partly tragic - you probably will cry, at least once! - , this book is far from being a tragedy. Be prepared to burst out laughing because of a funny turn you weren't expecting, a phrasing that puts sassy teenage Alicia right in front of your mind's eye, or because of dry wit shining forth. Something will make you laugh or smile even in the chapters about the gravest and most sorrowful times (to pick just one cue: nickname; p. 130).
One cannot possible miss that Alicia has written this book from her heart. Her love for her father shines out of and stands strongly behind every page. The honesty and depth of emotion in "Gracefully Gone" will certainly touch your heart.
It's a situation almost everybody can relate to. Lucky people, who haven't lost a loved one to a disease, be it cancer, Alzheimer's or any other life-changing and -taking illness! But even then, it is possible to feel for the 12 year old girl who tries to belong while her emotional vulnerability - having to deal with the fear of losing her father - makes her "a gazelle with a twisted ankle lying just outside a lion's den" (p. 37). Or with the teenager who is desperately trying to find an anchor. Or, of course, the young woman of 22 years, who tends to her father in the final five months of his life, torn between nerve-wracking dreams and most precious moments like a father's smile, that keep one going in such a situation which would consume everybody, let alone a young adult who already lost her childhood to the impending loss. As Alicia puts it: "Today was a hard one: A good one because I got to spend all day with my father but a hard one because I got to spend all day with my father." (p. 121).
"Gracefully Gone" is split in four parts, the memories of her father, which are interspersed throughout the book, her own recalling the years from 1980 (when he was diagnosed with brain cancer) to August 1990, her journal from August 1990 to January 1991, and an epilogue 2013.
While reading this book, I partly felt like watching a movie, or reading a novel and I had to remind myself that it is in fact a true story. Not because it's so unreal - it isn't, as I stated above - but because it's written in such a nonchalant, direct, non-artificial way, that it was as easy and entertaining to read as a novel should be. It made me not want to lay the book aside until I finished it. Although the whole situation is, of course, sad and partly tragic - you probably will cry, at least once! - , this book is far from being a tragedy. Be prepared to burst out laughing because of a funny turn you weren't expecting, a phrasing that puts sassy teenage Alicia right in front of your mind's eye, or because of dry wit shining forth. Something will make you laugh or smile even in the chapters about the gravest and most sorrowful times (to pick just one cue: nickname; p. 130).
One cannot possible miss that Alicia has written this book from her heart. Her love for her father shines out of and stands strongly behind every page. The honesty and depth of emotion in "Gracefully Gone" will certainly touch your heart.
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