'Emotionally acute, strikingly empathetic, thorough and unstinting intellectually . . . Above all a useful book, for life - the good bits and the sad ones, too' Richard Ford

After her mother died of cancer at the age of fifty-five, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief, an endeavour that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond.

With poignant lyricism and unswerving honesty, The Long Goodbye is a story of resilience, even in the face of bruising, immeasurable loss. It is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.

'An eye-witness report from the emotional battlefield . . . As close as you'll find to a description of the
indescribable' Jemima Lewis, Mail on Sunday

'The writing is sumptuous, detailed, open eyed, intuitive' Thomas Lynch, The Times

'Shot through with a candour and a fierceness which, if you know anything at all of what she is going through, you will find bracing, even cheering' Rachel Cooke, Observer