The holidays aren't always easy. Talking about grief is never easy. But life happens, and talking about it and writing about it helps.
A.W. Barnes has a new book of personal essays, "The Dark Eclipse: Reflections on Suicide and Absence." He writes of his growing up one of eight children in a conservative Indianapolis home and how he didn't fit in as a gay man. His older brother Mike was also gay, but their relationship was complicated. He explained to us that he had been trying to write about his brother for years, but couldn't. A therapist suggested he look at the source material of his brother's suicide - find the facts - to explore the feelings.
Sven Birkerts wrote about "The Dark Eclipse":
Hard-won knowledge is the kind that matters most..... A.W. Barnes tracks the reverberations of his brother's suicide through the long decades of aftermath.
