'Grief is the Thing with Feathers' by Max Porter

An immensely poignant portrayal of the impact of a woman’s sudden death on her sons and husband (a Ted Hughes scholar), and of their visit by Crow, all beak, flint eye and feathers, who stays with them through their mourning (grief being its own cure). An eloquent exploration of the liminal zones opened up by loss, awkward where awkwardness subverts cliché, poetic, dark, playful (the passages narrated by Crow are infused with the personality of this corvid psychopomp), unflinching and, ultimately, hopeful.

January 2016

   >> You can hear Max Porter (BTW he was Eleanor Catton's editor for The Luminaries; I was impressed by his thoughtfulness when he spoke with her at the Readers & Writers festival in Wellington a couple of years ago) read from Grief in the Thing with Feathers here.