The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story

by Clover Stroud

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'With brutal, beautiful honesty, Clover articulates how bereavement shocks and dislocates - and in all the pain, there's SO much life.' MARIAN KEYES'MUST READ ... A remarkable acount of love and grief.' - DAILY MAIL'She is a vigorous and fearless writer, grabbing us by the throat to describe life's horrors and her responses to them, filling her pages with the magnetic force of her own life as wife, lover and mother of five which somehow has to go on.' SPECTATOR...............................................'Can death bring something good to my life?'A few weeks before Christmas, Clover's sister died of breast cancer, aged forty-six. Just days before, she had been given years to live. Her sudden death split Clover's life apart. The Red of My Blood charts Clover's fearless passage through the first year after her sister's death.It is a book about what life feels like when death interrupts it, and about bearing the unbearable and describing an experience that seems beyond words. Lyrical, hopeful, it is also about the magical way in which death and life exist so vividly beside one another, and the wonder of being human.'A beautiful addition to the literature of loss. It will serve as a lit match, to be passed from one person to the next in the darkest moments.' THE SUNDAY TIMESCLOVER STROUD'S NEW BOOK, THE GIANT ON THE ON HOME, BELONGING AND LEARNING TO LET GO, IS OUT ON 9 MAY

Genres: Nonfiction, Grief, Biography Memoir, Memoir, Audiobook, Book Club, Death

264 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 10, 2022

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clover's sister was given at least five, probably ten years to live after battling breast cancer. Ten days later, she was dead.

Having lost (I dislike this term a lot), my own sister last year, hearing Clover's story on Happy Place Podcast with Fearne Cotton, I knew had to read this book.

This is Clover's experience of the first year after her sister's death.

Sibling grief doesn't get a lot of airplay, Clover sharing her experience of the loss of her sister means a great deal.

I appreciate that we don't see her sister as a mother, or a daughter, or even as a friend. This is sibling grief. Sister to sister.

I have three sisters. One I grieve for, two I grieve with. We all grieve the same person, our sister, Danielle, but that grief looks very different between the three of us.

While there's many things about Clover's grief that is unique to her, there's so much that hit my heart. So many experiences, feelings, thoughts, and visions I could write as my own.

The immediate aftermath, the 7-day milestone, the 'I can't imagine your pain, I can't imagine life without my sister' condolences. The searching, the blurred edges. The not wanting to wake up to one more day, the wanting to live as vibrant as possible. The contradictions, the hurt, the confusion, the love.

Thank you, Clover, for sharing your broken heart, memories, and raw emotion with us. I hope the more stories that are put out there, the more society will understand it doesn't look the same for everyone.  There's no one way to grieve.

[Sheena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt this was a little bit middle class self indulgence. Sometimes I got it and thought it was searing but some of the time it was repetitive though the author does mention going back over stages of grief time after time so maybe it was making a point (maybe a shorter book would have been better). Pleased I read the afterword which emphasised the author realised it was all focused on her and not her sister's children or other siblings because I had been feeling it was all her and no real compassion for those other very close relatives who were airbrushed out. Felt uncomfortable with the sex and death references a little too much intimate information for me. As I say sometimes I was there with her having lost loved ones myself other times I felt she was enjoying the navel gazing and writing, to be frank, a lot of drivel which no doubt was in her mind and her world extremely important profound stuff.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotional book about grief and live easy to follow and enjoyed it

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Stroud's brutally frank account of her emotional rollercoaster year of mourning the loss of her beloved sister. If, like me, you have been through this yourself, or even if you have experienced a recent loss of any family member, reading Stroud's minute and varied descriptions of the pain will pull at your heartstrings -- and bring to the surface any parts of your own unresolved pain .... even if it will not do much to help change that.

While they say 'misery loves company', in this incidence it does not find much solace. In fact, the best comfort comes from the words spoken to Stroud by her sister's oncologist some weeks after her death (p.174). While the reader will doubtless find numerous 'ah ha - that's it!' moments when coming across one of Stroud's perceptive descriptions of the pain, there will also be large tracts that do not resonate and - for this reader - seem too drawn out and somewhat overly self-indulgent.

Allow me to cite Stroud's own recollection of what her sister said while 'standing on a beach the summer before she died' - the only time they talked about death - that almost exactly capture the words of my own sister: "I cannot talk about the pain of not being there to see my children grow up. I cannot bear the thought of not being with them. I cannot talk about the pain of not seeing you surrounded by your grown-up children. I cannot bear these things."

[Wendy Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clover Stroud's sister died suddenly at the age of forty-six, just a few weeks before Christmas. Clover, author, journalist and mother of five finds her world torn apart.
Having recently read Joan Didion's clinical, almost objective account of her first year of widowhood, it was interesting to read Clover's experience during the year following her sister's death. It is a raw, visceral and fearless rendering of someone whose soul is scorched by grief and loss. Clover imagines herself on a quest through a forest in the company of Gawain and Lancelot as she learns to walk through life with death beside her. Clover searches for her sister everywhere, she neglects her home and frightens her children and turns away from the platitudes of people who cannot comprehend her grief.
Finally, she realises that the thing which enables her to live without her sister is 'a kind of alchemy of pain and life' beyond her understanding. What struck me most about this book is that such monumental grief, could only have come from monumental love.
This is not an easy read but if you want to learn more about the human experience of grief, this is an honest and brave piece of writing.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A profound journey into the forest of loss. The book explores what happened to Clover after her beloved sister died suddenly from breast cancer. Using a time frame of a year (similar to Joan Didion’s, A Year of Magical Thinking), she is brutally honest about how it is to be left living when the one you love has died. Sometimes I was too aware of the repetition of metaphors and descriptions of feelings, but perhaps it was concsiously done, a reflection of the grinding head-spin that is grief. Clover’s writing moved me to tears many times. Through the memories of her sister and the search for symbols, she crystallizes the process of finding a way back to life when all you want to do is disappear too.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve mixed feelings about this book. Having also lost a sister, suddenly, who even died in the same hospital as Nell, I thought I’d find much that I’d identify with. There were some paragraphs that were so spot on, but quite a lot of the narrative wasn’t terribly relatable. Lots of very descriptive language when I felt a rawness which defied description. Tremendous shock and disbelief characterised my first year. It seems that Clover’s journey was perhaps faster and quite different from mine. Though to be fair, if I’d tried to write my experience down it would have just featured a lot of anger and expletives 😏. That said, I’m pleased that I’ve read it and it’s great to see sibling grief spoken about.

[Paul Duindam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not used to this kind of writing style. Read incredibly faster then other styles. Open writing and very good to read. Its sometimes confronting the way she decribed situations. I will read more of her.

[Annie Tate Cockrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clover Stroud’s memoir following the first year after her sister’s very sudden death. Tragic subject matter and it felt like Stroud was use this book to write / work through her grief. It’s broken down into small moments in Stroud’s life throughout that first year. I didn’t necessarily feel any parallels between my own experiences of grief and hers but that being said I hope that others do and that writing this book was cathartic for Stroud.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful, so poetic and lyric. Moving and sincere and magical.

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard about this book and picked it up in a local bookshop over the bank holiday weekend.

Clover Stroud's sister dies quite suddenly despite being ill at the age of 46 and this book is Clover's memoir of the grief and pain she felt during that first year in particular.

I have read a few grief memoirs before but not one quite like this. I felt the pain from just reading this book and it did bring back some emotions from my own losses. Clover doesn't hold anything back and this book is full on and at times abstract. I loved how honest she was and it was refreshing to read how someone has grieved more viscerally than myself.

An interesting and very vivid book about losing a sibling.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely dreadful and self indulgent. Like most people in the world, I and my family have lost a very very young and dear loved one. We also remembered that there are other people that matter when mourning. A death of someone you love desperately is not just about you.

There is no plot, just self involved drivel.

I know this is a true story and I would imagine that the author is taking some poetic license in writing her story, so I just approach this as a story that is not written in a way that appeals to me.

I am terribly sorry that the author lost her sister. The death of someone who you love so much is just about as bad as life gets.

[Edie Taro]

This is an introspective, highly personal memoir about grief. As such, it feels unfair to give the book a rating or to criticise it for not being relatable enough - Clover Stroud's experience is her own. Sometimes I made a note of certain phrases which resonated. At other points, I felt locked out of the narrative as Clover described something unique to her.

The ideas in the book are often abstract, but the writing itself is quite precise. I got the sense she was trying to translate her feelings as clearly as possible to make them comprehensible to herself. It's a difficult endeavour to describe grief accurately, and I think Clover succeeds in doing this. She strikes me as an honest person whose emotional honesty comes through clearly on the page. This might be off-putting to some readers, but I appreciated that it wasn't holding back.

There's a universality to the experience of death/grief, but sometimes Clover's background was a barrier to connecting with the story. A common Home Counties problem: I think she views herself as more down to earth than she is ('we only rented a paddock!'), but she is ensconced in a very different world to that of my friends/family/wider community. In theory this should not have detracted from the book's contents or the lessons it teaches surrounding grief. In practice, it mattered.

I still think people from all walks of life could find gems of wisdom in this memoir, so I wouldn't discount it due to that. Just worth bearing in mind. I also thought the ending struck the right balance of realistic, yet hopeful. It offered consolation without being cloyingly sentimental or didactic. Again, this is a really hard thing to get right, so well done to Clover Stroud for pulling it off.

[Chloë Rewaj · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book club read, which I think affects my review. I wouldn’t have likely chosen to read this book, or if I had probably wouldn’t have read it right now, but I struggled with this.

I’ve upped it to 3 stars because the writing is very technically good, but I felt that a lot of the time I struggled to relate with Clover. I’m not going to tell anyone how to grieve, and I’m sure writing this book was extremely cathartic to her, but a lot of her experiences did not reflect in my own (I haven’t lost a sister, but I lost my mum when I was young). It’s not Clover Stroud’s fault she clearly comes from a well off background, but when someone is telling me they’re off to ride their horse to deal with their grief, I struggle a little bit to relate with that as I look out from my flat window. Also much of the book feels very bogged down in depression (which I suppose is accurate of grief), but I have preferred other memoirs on grief such as Crying in H mart which I felt was more nuanced in all the complicated feelings of losing someone we love.

All in all, if you’re already a fan of Clover’s writing or have processed in a similar way to her, then this book I’m sure will be - I guess not enjoyable - supportive. I personally don’t feel it’s for me but I by no means think it’s a bad book.

[Liz Marchant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly I felt I couldn’t read this very personal exploration into the depths of grief for a treasured sibling from cover to cover. It makes me feel guilty for writing that as there’s no doubt that the intense grief, anger and disassociation with life going on around her, is very real. However I found reading it like being slowly engulfed by quicksand - I am sure this is what the author herself felt about trying to accept the death of her sister. It was like reading someone’s personal journal where they’d just thrown their thoughts down day after day no matter how repetitive they were - which makes for difficult and weighty reading. I’d rather have read about Nell’s circus life which sounded incredibly interesting.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading so slowly at the moment, but this was a lovely way to keep things going. Finding it hard to find the words - it's a very human book. It's made me realise I can write the way I want and that that's the right way. Clover really knows how to pour herself onto a page, deeply. It's a yes-book, I understood, I nodded with her, the expansion of thoughts I might have had or hadn't thought to have was a good experience. It feels weird to be so positive about such devastation but I was carried all the way through - you always know this is happening to her, and she's showing you. Even in her telling of it all, she's still alone. Nothing is romanticised, but all is alive. It's a feat.

[Hannah Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clover's writing always pulls me in until I am entirely immersed. As I'm reading, I feel like I know her. I want to hug her and take her pain away. She is unflinchingly honest, and her unravelling thoughts are almost (but not quite) too much to bear. Death will come to us all, but it is still a taboo topic. I welcome the opportunity to learn more about how it can make you feel, and it helped me to understand how others may be feeling after the loss of someone they love and adore. I was fascinated by Clover's heightened sense of colour.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2019, Clover Stroud's beloved sister, Nell, died, quite suddenly and Clover's world fell apart. She was plunged into a year of intense mourning for her sister, often lost for words and not finding much comfort in the traditional go to's for mourning. This book is a raw, passionate and intimate portrait of that year and how she came to find ways to express herself and make sense of her feelings about the loss of her sister and about death in general.

[Lucy Skeet · Rating 5 out of 5]

going straight in my top books of the year! it’s not secret that i’m a huge fan of clover stroud, this is my third book of hers, and i really do think it’s her best yet. one of the most accurate, real, raw, depictions of grief i have ever read, and written in that stunning way of hers. need to get my hands on giant on the skyline now.

[Vicki Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a poignant memoir documenting the year following the death of Clovers sister Nell from cancer at the young age of 46.

It’s a unique take on grief, being solely from her perspective and while the stories of ponies and circus’ felt a little out of my reach to completely resonate, this book still landed hard and you can’t fail to be moved.

[Jennifer Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful and lyrical meditation on the author’s sister’s death. I’ve read Clover’s previous two books and always like her descriptions of nature and life and the countryside. Felt a little bit repetitive in places. I read another review saying some of this felt like ‘middle class indulgence’ and I can see how others might come to this view.

[Ailsa Britain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve spent a bit of time conflicted on how to ‘score’ this book which is on one hand one of the finest I’ve read (the author writes exquisitely about the death of her sister) but on the other hand one I wish I hadn’t read (the author writes viscerally about the death of her sister). It’s a beautiful book - very nearly 5 stars - but I’m not sure I recommend it.

[Silvia Jiménez Cruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es difícil hacer una reseña de un libro tan honesto. En corto, me gustó, pero he leído libros similares, igual de honestos, que me han gustado más. Me hubiese gustado que hubiese utilizado el recurso de los caballeros más o de una forma más profunda.

El libro es repetitivo, pero también lo es el luto, por lo que me cuesta decidir si eso es una crítica o solo una observación.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastatingly real and sometimes uncomfortable portrayal of the long drawn out ride of grief. Accrue and personal analysis of the feelings and senses that accompanied the writer through her ordinary life dealing with extraordinary pain.
Very well written.

[Evelina Rimkute · Rating 5 out of 5]

📖 The Red Of My Blood by @clover.stroud
💥💥💥💥💥

This is a book to read and experience if you have lost someone, if you are going through grief or if you have people you love around you. One day you have to face eternal good bye..💕

[Clare Downing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written completely from the heart. Anyone who has been or is going through grief will get comfort from this book.
I could relate so much to it, the way Clover writes makes you clearly understand and feel the emotions she was feeling.

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The raw and honest account of the grief Clover Stroud experienced in the year following her sister’s sudden death. A remarkable book.

[Harriet Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clovers book always blow me away. Loved this one.

[Gem ~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profoundly moving read
Full review to follow

[Georgina Harwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vivid & brutally honest book written in Clover’s truly amazing style.