Here After: A Memoir

by Amy Lin (Narrator)

Here After is a poetic, raw depiction of an unlikely love followed by a dizzying loss. A stunning, taut memoir from debut Canadian author Amy Lin that will resonate deeply with anyone who has been in grief’s grasp.

“When he dies, I fall out of time.”

Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure, and greater self-acceptance. But on a hot August morning, on the eve of the newlyweds’ big move to Toronto, thirty-one-year-old Kurtis heads out to run a half-marathon with Amy’s family. It’s the last time she sees her husband alive. Ten days after this seismic loss, Amy is in the hospital, navigating her own shocking medical crisis and making life-or-death decisions about her treatment.

What follows is a rich and unflinchingly honest accounting of her life with Kurtis, the vortex created by such a loss, and the ongoing struggle Amy faces trying to understand her own experience in the context of commonly held “truths” about what the grieving process looks like.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Grief, Audiobook, Mental Health, Biography Memoir, Biography

4 pages, Audiobook

First published March 5, 2024

About the author

Amy Lin is an author and writer. She takes everything seriously including not taking everything seriously. Her short fiction can be found in Ploughshares and she has been awarded residencies at Casa Comala and Yaddo. Here After is her first book.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book wrecked me in the best possible way. In Here After, Amy Lin writes about her husband’s death at the tragic age of 32, their relationship before and her journey into grief afterward. She captures scenes and emotions so well, writing about the moments she and Kurtis shared together throughout their relationship, to when she learned about his death, to the pain-ridden moments that comprised her existence following his passing. By page 29 I already felt sucker punched in the stomach and a couple of passages had already made me tear up. She writes in a short vignette style and her ability to render specific memories of their relationship, like little slices of conversation, tore my heart up. Some may describe her writing as choppy though I think it worked in this memoir and represented the consciousness of someone going through an awful, raw, real tragedy. She depicted Kurtis’s loving and larger-than-life personality so well; I felt like I got a real sense of him as a person.

One of my favorite elements of this memoir was how Lin asserted her right to be sad. With grief, sometimes the aftermath is just horrible and painful and morose. You don’t need to try to make it happy or put a positive spin on it. A tragedy can be a tragedy and it’s important to make space for those feelings.

I also appreciated Lin’s honesty throughout Here After. I liked her candid self-characterization as the more prickly or “petty” romantic partner compared to Kurtis. She writes about her own insecurities in their relationship and how she feared him leaving her, which I think takes guts to put on the page. She’s real about many parts of the grieving process, such as how after Kurtis’s death she spent time with one of his closest friends, and then this friend ghosted her with no explanation.

In sum, I absolutely loved this. Reading Here After, I felt immersed in Lin’s emotional landscape while also feeling compassion for the tragedies and losses I’ve experienced in my own life. Great representation of an Asian couple though of course it's so freaking tragic. A stunner of a debut.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel raw. This was absolutely breathtaking. Grief, mourning, pain, and heartache written in such a brutally forward manner. Devastatingly potent and emotionally honest. I cried multiple times.

There are so many people I’ve lost to death recently, but this memoir made me think most about a friend, who I’ve had the deepest connection with (more than my parents or any significant others). And it made me long for him to come back to me. I miss him every day. I recognized so much in this book yet it is not my story. It’s Amy’s story through and through.

This is a firecracker of a book and deserves all the praise it’s been getting. Stunning piece of writing with an psychologically naked approach. I took photos of multiple pages/passages. I’ve never read grief like this before. A new fave.

—Full review coming

[Shannon (The Book Club Mom) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two words: heartbreakingly beautiful. Those were the ones that I whispered to myself after finishing this memoir, while holding my kindle to my chest, and releasing a huge sigh. Here After by Amy Lin is a memoir about a young woman’s grief after her husband dies, and it’s also an epic love story. Lin flawlessly weaves snippets her loss, grief, and people’s reactions to it with memories of her relationship with her late husband. It also acts as an important reminder that grief has no timeline. It’s not cut and dry, black or white, or ever truly goes away. Grief has many shapes and forms, and can rear its ugly head at the most unexpected times. Lin’s writing is absolutely stunning. It’s lyrical, raw, honest, and extremely intimate. At times, it felt like I was reading her personal journal. I was captivated by her words, journey, and strength to share her experience with us all. I have a feeling that this memoir will take the book world by storm in the new year. Here After releases on March 5th, 2024, and it gets 5/5 stars from me.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this grief memoir. It is told in a choppy vignette style the way grief feels and the way grief books are often written. While the story is sad and the author obviously destroyed over the sudden loss of her husband the book doesn't feel too/overly devastating. I think it is lovely tribute to her husband and her relationship and to her own ability to keep on.

[Jan Agaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

[Nevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am really sad to give 3 stars to this book….

Several things bothered me but before I get to that, I must add something very personal.

Unfortunately, I am very intimately familiar with grief. I lost my daughter to leukemia 10 years ago and I recently lost my husband to sudden death syndrome.
I have been grieving constantly for the last 10 years. I know firsthand what it means to lose a loved one or in my case, loved ones. 😞 I know the deep pain of, loneliness, isolation, anger, sadness, depression, anxiety and million other emotions that are tied to grief.

I was really excited to pick up this memoir because I felt it would speak to my heart like some other books I read about grief. For example I recently read “I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This” by Clare Mackintosh which absolutely blew me away! That book was able to compose all the feelings I felt inside of me.

Unfortunately I had two major problems with Here After.

One, the author really didn’t go deep enough into her pain. It always felt as if she was skirting around it but was too afraid to delve deeper into her grief. Maybe it is still too raw for her?

The other issue is her writing style. It was too choppy and all over the place for me. It didn’t flow well.

Having said all that, I get her. I know it’s really hard to write about yourself in such detail. It’s hard to expose yourself to the world. I applaud her honesty and courage.

[Sherri Puzey · Rating 5 out of 5]

“How can grief be so universal and yet still so widely misunderstood?”

HERE AFTER is a stunning memoir of love and loss. I’m very drawn to books about grief so I’ve read a lot of them, and this is one of the very best I’ve ever read. @literaryamy’s writing is breathtaking, and this book is truly a work of art in every way: the structure of the book, the layout of the words on each page, the language used to describe the searing pain of the sudden death of Amy’s husband less than two years into their marriage. It’s raw and honest and doesn’t shy away from the realities of grief, the inadequacies of others’ responses to grief, and the inescapable quality of grief. On each page Amy has stripped down her words to hue as closely as possible to the pain of her loss, and despite how much I cried reading this book I couldn’t put it down. A remarkable love story and an outstanding literary memoir—I can’t recommend it enough. Out March 5.

#GriefIsEverywhere #AmyLin #HereAfter #zibbybooks #memoir #debut #bookreview #grief #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #amreading #booklover #mustread

[Angela Woods · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book called to me since my husband of 13 years died unexpectedly, instantly four years ago. I'm a fellow young widow and it's extremely isolating, which leads me to read every sad book in the world, obviously. It's hard to rate a memoir...you kind of feel like a jerk for downgrading someone's experience so I focus on the writing itself, which didn't do it for me. There wasn't a lot of depth or anything to really hold onto emotionally. I love short chapters but this felt....lazy? I connected with a lot from this book because of the shared trauma but I'd probably not read anything else by this author, personally.

[Book of the Month]

Why I love it
By Fiora Elbers-Tibbitts

I’m the kind of reader who treats “I cried” as a firm endorsement of a book. Based on Here After’s premise, it was perhaps foreseeable that I found myself unmoored and wet-faced upon finishing it. However, I could never have predicted how severely this book would gut me.

Amy Lin’s husband was just 32 when he died. They were happy, healthy, newly married, and deeply in love. Here After is Lin’s exploration of the aftermath of his death as much as it is a celebration of their courtship. We see Kurtis through Lin’s eyes—his contagious enthusiasm and zest for life—and feel her emptiness without him by her side.

Here After is gorgeously written in poetic vignettes. It is so emotionally raw you will be tempted to look away, but Lin’s utter lack of self-pity will keep you grounded, on the page, in the moment. This is one of the most affecting books I have ever read. It voices the deepest fears we all keep in the back of our minds: the knowledge that we cannot protect the ones we love, and that, someday, we will have to go on without them. So yes, I cried. But I also came away from this book grateful to be alive and grateful to be loved, and so will you.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75. Not sure how to review a book like this. It’s someone’s real experience with horrible tragedy and grief and there are some beautiful passages and I am grateful she shared. I didn’t love the format.

[Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

About the book: “Here After is an intimate story of deep love followed by dizzying loss; a stunning, taut memoir from debut author Amy Lin so finely etched and powerful that it will alter readers' hearts. ‘When he dies, I fall out of time.’”

I choose to read about grief often because I have difficulty finding the right words to express the emotions. Reading how others share puts me more in touch with processing where I am myself. It also allows me to feel seen and accepted, and on top of that, I think it makes me more empathetic and open to others who are grieving.

I regularly recommend Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief, and Here After will be added to that very short list. I will be gifting it to friends and family and sharing it as often as I can because it’s just that special. I also have to mention its appearance. It’s smaller in size, which I love, and the cover is buttery soft, like you just want to hold and hug it. While Here After is a story of devastating loss, it’s also one of epic love. Here After is deep and raw; stealing your breath. That’s how grief is, right?

I received a free copy of the book and an advance listening copy of the audio from librofm. I highly recommend the audio read by the author.

Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader

[Sarah ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here After - Amy Lin


اقتباسات من الكتاب:

"أريده أن يعرف. أن أضمه وأن أنظر في عينيه وأخبره كرتيس ليندسي ري نيشياما، لقد كنت على حق. الحب أطول م�� الزمن.."


"الحزن ألم مزمن. فمتى سيسمح الآخرون للمكلومين بالعيش دون أن ينتظروا منهم "الشفاء" من الحزن؟"

"أقول له أنت لا تعرف أسماء ألامي. يقول: سأتعلم."
...
~


تكتب آمي لين عن الحزن والحداد والفقد؛ تكتب عن زوجها الذي رحل فجأة ذات مساء صيفي، غادر المنزل للمشاركة بماراثون خلال فترة الكورونا ولم يعد، سبب الوفاة غير محدد؛ وإن كان يرجح أن أزمة قلبية تسببت بوفاة شاب في الثانية والثلاثين.

تكتب آمي عن الحزن غير المفهوم والمفاجيء، عن الخسارة التي تأخذك على حين غرّة، عن الاستثياظ كل يوم مع هذا الحزن والفقد..
كتاب صغير ومؤثر.
أفكر بآمي وكل من يعاني من الحزن المزمن، ولكن أافكر أيضًا بأهل غزة وسط الإبادة؛ أهل غزة الذين لم يتح لهم قط فرصة لـلحداد ولا الحزن ولا حتى لحظة لالتقاط الأنفاس ويحاولون النجاة فقط لما يزيد عن 15 شهر...

[DianaRose · Rating 5 out of 5]

a beautiful and heartbreaking account of grief and life after becoming a young widow

[Hannah (hngisreading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grief is so, so heavy. This book is an attempt to lighten the burden. It will never go away.

[Sarah Swans · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are grieving, please read this book. If you have grieved, please read this book. If you know someone who is grieving or has grieved, PLEASE read this book. Lin is so beautifully raw and exposed in her writing of her journey with grief. So much of what I thought was weird or abnormal with my own grieving process felt validated with the writing of her experience. This memoir is so tragically beautiful and brings to the light the real emotional, physical, and mental process of grieving. Loved the writing style, almost like poetry. I am closing this book feeling sad, happy, relieved, like I can breathe again. The comfort and “tell it like it is” manner I didn’t know I needed in my journey.

[Callie Mish · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself is heartbreaking. A memoir of a woman who unexpectedly lost her husband- giving it 3 stars seems cruel. However, I hated the format of the book.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly moving, lyrical and raw memoir about grief and loss and learning to move on after the sudden death of a partner. This was amazing on audio read by the author, new Canadian writer, Amy Lin. Highly recommended for anyone experiencing loss and grief.

[*.✧ m i k h a ✧.* · Rating 4 out of 5]

You think sadness has a kind of beauty, he tells me once. I don’t, I say but he is right. He is not right anymore. He is not anything anymore.

Such a vulnerable, raw confession of what grief can look like. I didn't want to rate this book at first because of just how deeply exposing this book must have been for Lin. The changing time frames holds weight as the reader is empathetic to Lin's current grief before being pulled into a past memory in which the reader gets know Kurtis and feel the emptiness of his not being there in the present. This memoir felt as though we were sitting one-on-one, Lin recounting her and Kurtis' story to me.
___________________________________

How does one rate a memoir so raw and emotional as this?
- 06.12.24

[Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Grief is chronic pain. When will others allow the mourning to live without expecting them to be 'cured'?"

It's been a while since I've sat down and read a book from start to finish, never letting my eyes off the pages. Here After absolutely captivated me with its complex exploration of grief. After I finished, I could do nothing more than sit and reflect on the concluding words of Lin's acknowledgments. Her story is profoundly moving, and I am utterly unable to do it justice in a review. Please, read it for yourself.

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know how this book such great reviews. It was all over the place, a quick easy read that left me unsatisfied.

[Mizuki Giffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely so beautiful. I read this in one sitting and was crying by page 34.

[Pier · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book for being about grief but not some lesson or guide on how to ‘move on’ but instead views grief through the lens of what it is— a real mental and physical illness and for some, a chronic one. Some say that the author doesn’t go too deep into her own emotions but I didn’t have that same issue personally. The author acknowledges her own struggle with opening up and I related to how her physical symptoms and somatic symptoms ended up taking that burden due to the repression of grief.

The non-linear narrative worked for me as it showed how the past is always there/never as far as you think and ever haunting, especially after the loss of a loved one. It’s a quick read due to the format, though, so I’d caution against buying it before reading it all the way through and wait for a sale if you really like it.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listen to Amy Lin on the Book Gang Podcast NOW! We discuss Surprising Truths About Grief Click here to tune in! If you love the show, please consider joining my Patreon.

***
Amy Lin's deeply meditative memoir offers a nonlinear perspective on the sudden loss of her husband, who passed away at the age of thirty-two when he heads out for a half-marathon. His deathly collapse is unbelievable and leaves her with no answers.

Just ten days later, she begins to have abdominal pain that Amy attributes to simply weeping- feeling indescribable pain in her rib. But what develops is a harrowing medical crisis that leaves her body in a weakened state as she navigates funeral planning while emerging from the ICU. Set against the grim backdrop of the pandemic, all of this can't be processed the way it deserves, from Zoom calls with a therapist to the absence of friend gatherings.

I read this book with much trepidation- I'm not typically drawn to this type of memoir simply because I'm in a season where life feels challenging. But, I walked away from this experience with an instruction manual on my misconceptions about what is helpful or harmful to someone grieving.

Lin processes it in a contemplative way, but also almost as an academic exercise to understand the body's responses to loss, why grief doesn't fit abstract timeliness, and what we should and should not say to those newly processing loss.

It reads like a diary, segmented into impactful emotional bites that sometimes seamlessly blend old memories among fresh aspects of grief. Intentional white space is left on every page, offering readers space between each entry. But readers should expect big emotions with devastating lines like, "When he dies, I fall out of time."

It was a joy to share an hour with Amy Lin on Book Gang and discuss the hurtful and harmful ways that people support grieving and the beneficial ways we can step into people's lives without shying away from the universal experience of grief. If the memoir itself feels too heavy, the conversation will give you so much for your relationships now and in the future.

Lin unflinchingly tells the reader that if you think this is hard for you, imagine what it is like for me. You can't turn away.

[Krutika · Rating 5 out of 5]

my heart is in pieces

have you ever wondered why we’re drawn to stories of grief and suffering? time and again we seek books and tales that captures this heavy emotion, and together the writer and the reader (us) shed a tear. why is it that we mourn the losses of strangers, feel their pain like it’s our own and take days to recover from the aftermath of being part of their grief? i ask myself this every time I read a book in which someone dies. i want to ask questions of my own when i read of such instances, about why bad things always happen to good people and why some lives are so bright yet so short.

i read Here After by @literaryamy and weeped for her loss. For her husband who seemed like an incredible man, son and a husband. this memoir broke my heart and I’m afraid it’ll forever mourn for him.

Amy Lin writes so fluidly, like a river that is made of tears. there’s sorrow and love and everything that ‘could have been’. when she loses her husband quickly and suddenly, it’s like a rug that has been pulled from beneath her feet. an action so abrupt that the world seemed to stop revolving around its axis. from reading about how they met to how they got married, their love story will always be my favourite. this memoir isn’t too long but the weight and beauty of it has singed me, leaving behind this notion that this is how love is supposed to be.

i can’t stop thinking about here after even days after i have read it.

a memoir so raw and sore that it makes you want to call your loved ones and tell them how much you love them. a memoir that will probably never make you take anything for granted.

to @literaryamy , thank you for sharing your story with us ♥️

[KT · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When he dies, I fall out of time."

Lin's writing made the hairs on my arms stand up and broke my chest cavity wide open with feeling. I remember crying while reading it.

I'm someone who loves to be able to grasp the structure of a book, and there really isn't any to be found here. Yet that was perfectly fine. The disjointedness worked well; it felt like you were in her head experiencing the discursive memories that float up everyday without a linear order. I find it so beautiful that through this book, thousands of people now have a measure of who Kurtis is/was, through Amy Lin's eyes. If you're familiar with Ruth Chan's Grief is Like Butter comic, Here After illustrates that aspect of grief so, so gorgeously.

I highly recommend this memoir.

[tia ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

How stellar and how absolutely, absolutely sad. Thank you Amy Lin for writing this and for the beautiful narration of your own memoir.

(Track 95)
Let time be tender toward us
Let love be at the end, wherever that may be
I worry we will divorce, not that he will die

(Track 185)
I cannot believe how much pain we are asked to bear when we are alive
How, even if there is a way, no one can show us how to live with it

Thank you so much to LibroFM and to Zibby Books for this advanced audibook copy, what a special book to exist

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is like being entrusted with something precious and sacred. It is beautiful and heartbreaking. I want to read it again more slowly and hold the author’s grief with her.

[Victoria Liboiron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir was truly breathtaking. The juxtaposition of Amy’s grief combined with her and Kurtis’ love story is heart-wrenching and evocative. Her writing style is unlike anything I have read before—poetic and lyrical, but also, at times, blunt and fluorescent. I feel that through its brevity and prose, Lin builds a powerful, raw, and painful portrayal of love and loss. She paints a picture of how it feels to love deeply and mourn with the same intensity. You can tell that this work is truly a piece of her soul—and what a gift that is to read. I mean it when I say it was unputdownable.

[Dee P · Rating 5 out of 5]

It intertwines a captivating love story with the poignant narrative of grief and loss, offering a beautiful portrayal of true love, commitment, and marriage. I've always been impressed by her skill in seamlessly intertwining past and present storylines, effortlessly transitioning from one idea to the next. Her storytelling is a true gift. I experienced tears, laughter, frustration, fully immersed in her narrative of grief.

[Elizabeth Stolar · Rating 3 out of 5]

4/7. I got this through BOTM on a whim. It's very raw and sad - an excellent portrayal of grief. But this book is extremely short. It's only 257 pages, but almost none of the pages are full of text -- some only have a paragraph or two. A fast and interesting read, probably good for someone dealing with grief, but it was a little disjointed and I kind of wanted a little more depth.