Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley

How do we live without the ones we love?GriefIs for Peopleis a deeply moving and suspenseful portrait of friendship, and a book about loss that is profuse with life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.

For most of her adult life, Sloane and Russell worked together and played together as they navigated the corridors of office life, the literary world, and the dramatic cultural shifts in New York City. One day, Sloane's apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery in its place.

When Russell dies exactly one month later, his suicide propels Sloane on a wild quest to right the unrightable, to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll of the pandemic.

Sloane Crosley's search for truth is frank, darkly funny, and gilded with resounding empathy. Upending the "grief memoir,"Grief Is for Peopleis a category-defying story of the struggle to hold on to the past without being consumed by it. A modern elegy, it rises precisely to console and challenge our notions of mourning during these grief-stricken times.(From MCD)

• How memoir helped Sloane Crosley grieve the loss of her best friend

Sloane Crosley is a New York-based writer of novelsCult ClassicandThe Clasp and essay collectionsLook Alive Out There,Was Told There'd Be CakeandHow Did You Get This Number. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and her work has appeared inThe New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, The Atlantic and The Guardian.

Interviews with Sloane Crosley