A Grief Sublime

by Beth Robbins, Karen Allen (Reading), James Warwick (Reading)

After the sudden death of her husband of thirty years --Steve "Sproutman" Meyerowitz-- author Beth Robbins turned to writing for comfort. And to Keats, Whitman, Melville, and Dickinson. What began as a mourning rite transformed into a lyrical, inspiring memoir of childhood, marriage, grief, and ultimately resurrection.

Beautifully read by award winning narrators Karen Allen with James Warwick this powerful audiobook shows us raw despair and its transformation into a hopeful, transcendent experience of life.

The true events of A Grief Sublime are being adapted into a short film directed by Academy Award winner Cynthia Wade.

This audiobook is followed by an exclusive interview with the author Beth Robbins and audiobook producer Alison Larkin.

Audio CD

First published December 7, 2019

Reviews

[Peejay(Pamela) · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her book — a mix of memoir, love poem, fiction — Robbins perfectly captures the fractured nature of grief and moving forward after a sudden tragic loss. It’s beautiful, and painful; at times, it is joyful, but most of all it is true. Like life itself, grief is full of contradictions.

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the years since my husband's passing, I've been drawn to books about grief, memoirs by those mourning the loss of a spouse. I read C. S. Lewis's A Grief Observed and Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, among others, and novels and films too.

But this very personal memoir moved me more than all of the others and resonated more deeply with my own experience. And this would be the one I would recommend to anyone who has lost a husband or wife.

In the "preamble" Robbins gives the Middle English deprivation of the word and its meaning "to carry over." And she says of this book, "I translate my life with Steve and my life without Steve. I carry it over. I carry it across." And that's exactly what she does.

It begins in the calm of an evening in which she awaits his return home, falls asleep, and is startled awake by the flashing lights of police cars in her driveway. Steve has been killed in an automobile crash. What follows is the funeral, and their children's responses to their father's death, all of the details that attend a death, and memories of when she first knew Steve as a friend, and of before she knew him, and memories of their life together and of her return to work, to daily life without him.

Robbins is a high school literature teacher. The book is richly laced with references to poetry and prose and etymologies. The language is exquisite. It's spare and lush at the same time. And the lines are set up like poetry on the page: stand alone lines, lines grouped as stanzas, and lots of white space ... perfect for reflection.

Two things I especially related to were her need to hold on to his possessions because he might need them. I had exactly the same feeling when my husband died. For the longest time, I couldn't part with things he used because he might want them again. It's irrational but it's what I felt. And the second is the way a relationship doesn't end with death. It goes on.

"Life in a physical body in in time.
Life outside of the body is outside of time.
The communication that can occur after death is
a communication that is beyond or within words.
When I allow myself to be present to feel and
hear Steve, I feel true joy."

There is so much of remembering in her memoir, revisiting moments with her husband, and so much of remembering, revisiting moments with my husband, in my own life, that I I felt right at home in A Grief Sublime. Making sense, understanding more deeply, reliving, honoring ... "the communication that can occur after death is a communication that is beyond or within words." It's painfully true. And Beth Robbins writes it so well.

[Jennifer Huberdeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first met Ari and Noah when I interviewed them about taking over their father's business. I had never met Steve, but felt his kindness radiate through old videos on YouTube. I met Beth during a writing seminar I was taking at Arrowhead. The topic was writing through grief. I didn't realize, until the end of the 3-hour workshop that Beth was Beth, wife of Steve, mother of Ari and Noah. I purchased her book that day.

The first day I read, I had to stop, as I wept. I would have, even if I had never met Beth or Noah or Ari. The emotion, the love, the longing just pour of the pages. We are besides Beth as she moves through her grief, her learning to live without the comfort of Steve, her learning to be alone even when she's not. Thank you for sharing.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit to bias because I know the author and met her the summer she was in Oxford when she gave birth to the idea for this book. Now let me tell you about it.

This is a book about grief, the title tells you that. But it’s much more than that. It’s a book about love - love for self, for a partner, for children, for literature, for life. It’s about embracing the ephemeral as it tries to float away. It’s about taking note and notice. It’s about words and language and poetry, three different and interwoven ideas. It’s a memoir, but it’s also creative non-fiction. You can read it fast, but digest it slow.

[Nicholas Stahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I just read Beth’s most personal diary entries.

I picked this book up from a small shop in Massachusetts and I’m so glad I did. The way Robbins uses poetry to digest and unravel her reality is fascinating.

Grief is unique for everyone and this book does such a poignant job of dealing with it. The ideas of liminality and its quiet and unnerving space it can take within someone really moved me. So sad, so real, and so honest.

[Becky Aud-Jennison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creatively expressed and emotionally evocative, I so appreciated Beth taking us along on the journey of the shock and heartbreak of her husband’s untimely death. I highly recommend this book. Thank you to the author for sharing your story.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written.