In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness

by Katie Swenson

The day her fiancé died suddenly of a heart attack, Katie Swenson retreated to “Bohemia,” the third-floor loft that the couple had renovated in their home in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and began to write. A visceral account of grief and the profound kindness that resonates around it, this is also the story of her hundred-year-old house, named the “Scarab” after the Egyptian symbol for rebirth, and the two courageous women who built it a century earlier—Wellesley College professors Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful,” and her partner Katharine Coman. Parallel lives unfold in the magical Bohemia, where Coman died, where Bates mourned, and where Swenson wrote and wrote through that first searing year, held up by their spirits. Told with rare emotional power, In Bohemia is a meditation on love, family, and community, and inspires us to be our best selves.

Genres: Memoir

240 pages, Hardcover

Published October 15, 2020

Reviews

[Sandipleeter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an amazing gift. Thank you thank you thank you.

[Kira · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a powerful memoir about love and loss, as noted, but also architecture, building, family, and history. I came away thinking about the serendipity of life. These two people found each other and connected in a profound way for a short time; I could not stop marveling at that happening. That we get to learn about that connection is a gift. The grief is palpable, but there is also something about walking through it with Katie that makes grief feel like a purposeful, loving part of life, too. That itself is a gift of this book.