4.0
I Had a Brother Once
ByPublisher Description
A brilliant, genre-defying work—both memoir and epic poem—about the struggle for wisdom, grace, and ritual in the face of unspeakable loss
“A bruised and brave love letter from a brother right here to a brother now gone . . . a soaring, unblinking gaze into the meaning of life itself.”—Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
my father said
david has taken his own life
Adam is in the middle of his own busy life, and approaching a career high in the form of a #1 New York Times bestselling book—when these words from his father open a chasm beneath his feet. I Had a Brother Once is the story of everything that comes after. In the shadow of David’s inexplicable death, Adam is forced to re-remember a brother he thought he knew and to reckon with a ghost, confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp. This is an expansive and deeply thoughtful poetic meditation on loss and a raw, darkly funny, human story of trying to create a ritual—of remembrance, mourning, forgiveness, and acceptance—where once there was a life.
“A bruised and brave love letter from a brother right here to a brother now gone . . . a soaring, unblinking gaze into the meaning of life itself.”—Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
my father said
david has taken his own life
Adam is in the middle of his own busy life, and approaching a career high in the form of a #1 New York Times bestselling book—when these words from his father open a chasm beneath his feet. I Had a Brother Once is the story of everything that comes after. In the shadow of David’s inexplicable death, Adam is forced to re-remember a brother he thought he knew and to reckon with a ghost, confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp. This is an expansive and deeply thoughtful poetic meditation on loss and a raw, darkly funny, human story of trying to create a ritual—of remembrance, mourning, forgiveness, and acceptance—where once there was a life.
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4.0
brandi 🌿
Created 5 months agoShare
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““a sense that i am being dishonest, that everything is false until i bare this wound” !!!!!!!!!
My late husband’s name was David. It’s a name I didn’t realize was so common until after he died. This isn’t the first book I’ve read about mourning a David, but because I lost mine to a suspected suicide as well, this one definitely hits the hardest. Especially that last page. As soon as I read that last page, I put my library copy down and immediately picked up my phone to order a copy for myself. I am so thankful to the author for being vulnerable enough to share his reality of a grief that is never ending. As he mentions, it is not common to find others who understand this feeling and those who do rarely want to speak on it (understandably so). I will carry Adam’s narrative with me forever.”
Amanda Champagne
Created 6 months agoShare
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“Heartbreaking in a way I wish I couldn’t relate to”
lilcoffeemug
Created 10 months agoShare
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Deborah
Created about 1 year agoShare
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About Adam Mansbach
Adam Mansbach is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Go the F**k to Sleep, the novels Rage Is Back, Angry Black White Boy, and The End of the Jews (winner of the California Book Award), and a dozen other books, most recently the bestselling A Field Guide to the Jewish People, co-written with Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. Mansbach wrote the award-winning screenplay for the Netflix Original Barry, and his next feature film, Super High, starring Andy Samberg, Craig Robinson, and Common, is forthcoming from New Line. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Believer, and The Guardian and on This American Life, The Moth, and All Things Considered.
Other books by Adam Mansbach
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