Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
A Novel
Where it sits
How strongly BookFrontier reads the book as belonging to each subject.
Nearest books
Closest matches from our semantic model, which compares what books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved. Most of these share its genre: Literary Fiction.
The Memory Police: A NovelYoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder50% match
AusterlitzW.G. Sebald, James Wood50% match
Sea of TranquilityEmily St. John Mandel50% match
HamnetMaggie O'Farrell56% match
Private RitesJulia Armfield52% match
Mrs. MarchVirginia Feito53% match
Martyr!Kaveh Akbar50% match
The GoldfinchDonna Tartt58% matchAlso shares Psychological Fiction
For younger readers: The Faint of Heart, Fangirl, Scary Stories for Young Foxes
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Join the waitlistAbout this book
Soon to be adapted as the major motion picture THE THING WITH FEATHERS, starring Benedict Cumberbatch
Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar--a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them.
Continue reading
The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised.
In this moment of violent despair they are visited by Crow--antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter. This self-described "sentimental bird," at once wild and tender, who "finds humans dull except in grief," threatens to stay with the wounded family until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss lessens with the balm of memories, Crow's efforts are rewarded and the little unit of three begins to recover: Dad resumes his book about the poet Ted Hughes; the boys get on with it, grow up.
Part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's extraordinary debut combines compassion and bravura style to dazzling effect. Full of angular wit and profound truths, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a startlingly original and haunting debut by a significant new talent.
In our reading guides
Publisher details
Publisher categories
- Grief & Loss
- Literary Fiction
- Magical Realism
- Authors
- Max Porter
- Publisher
- Graywolf
- Published
- June 7, 2016
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Grief & Loss