Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

This is the story of a very private and personal loss: the loss of Elizabeth McCracken's baby, stillborn, in the ninth month of what had been a fairly normal pregnancy. As an author, McCracken recognizes the healing powers of the written word and the need to put all of this down on paper. She has done a remarkable job. This is a poignant memoir told, not just with obvious sadness, but with a soft, healing humor as well. McCracken was in her mid-thirties, and a self-professed spinster, "a woman no one imagined marrying," when she met the writer Edward Carey. Life changed; they fell in love, moved in together, travelled and lived in various locations, pursuing jobs and fellowships. After a few years, they married. They were living in France, working on their respective books, when Elizabeth discovered that she was pregnant. All seemed fine until the end of the pregnancy when things suddenly went terribly wrong and Elizabeth had to go through the agony of delivering her stillborn son. For most of us, the pain and sadness described is unfathomable. McCracken tells us that after the baby they'd been calling Pudding dies, "what was killing was how nothing had changed. We'd been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our old life." It is difficult not to shed tears as this story unfolds. Joy and hope are such a huge part of any pregnancy; we see only the future. There is no emotional roadmap with which we come equipped to deal with such loss. Elizabeth shares the ways that she and her husband have come through with the love and support of their families and friends. "To know that other people were sad made Pudding more real," she writes. The story reminded me of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Both memoirs describe such a deep personal loss and to me, the absolute need to write the story. This memoir has the quality of a journal--it is just so personal. McCracken and her husband are now the parents of a second child, Gus, born one year and five days after Pudding. Gus, as McCracken points out, is not a "miracle baby" as some might say about "stories like ours," but "a nice everyday baby." Theirs is now a "happy life, and someone is missing." by Janet Caplan for Story Circle Book Reviews reviewing books by, for, and about women

As the mother of four children, two of whom died hours after they were born, I just knew I had to read Elizabeth McCracken's story after reading a magazine review. The story is honest and straight from the heart. Reading her journey of Pudding's life during her pregnancy and subsequent death, I took comfort from her words, knowing that there's no right or wrong way to handle yourself & your grief after the loss of a child. As she asked herself "What if..." I found myself remembering those exact same questions, knowing deep down that there really was nothing that could have changed the sad outcome. I respect and admire the strength and courage it took for her to share her story and am grateful for being given the chance to relive my children's short lives and subsequent deaths with sadness and a hint of joy. They are, after all, a part of our family and Pudding will always be Elizabeth's "first born." As she questioned herself that first Mother's Day, I nodded my head and said aloud "Yes -- you are a Mother and deserve to celebrate this day with Mothers everywhere." The story is beautifully written with words the flow gently, accurately describing the pain and sorrow and hope she & her husband felt that entire year after Pudding's death. I felt as if I knew Elizabeth personally and shared in her happiness after the birth of Gus. I am certain he will come to know his big brother "Pudding" and will be grateful for the role he played in bringing Gus into this world. Thank you for sharing your story Elizabeth. You are an inspiration to mother's everywhere, especially those of us who have gone through similar situations and for those who may not have the courage to share their story.

This is one of the most powerful books I've read in quite some time. It is easily read in a day. Once you start, you won't want to put it down. There is a huge amount of emotional vulnerability and honesty in this short memoir, which makes for an extraordinarily engaging read. From the beginning, the reader knows about the tragic and heartbreaking ending of McCracken's first pregnancy. We know what happened, but we're not quite sure about the details leading up to the point where she received the news that her unborn baby had died. McCracken makes you feel that you need to know. You need to understand exactly what happened. But she takes her time, giving you the background first. McCracken goes back and forth between past and present. How she met her husband (who is surely an angel, by the way), how they lived in various countries on various continents, how they ended up living in France at the time of her pregnancy. She is all over the place in terms of the timeline of events, which might be distracting, EXCEPT for the fact that all the jumping around somehow seemed appropriate given the subject matter of this book. Because this book is about grief, and let's face it: grief is messy. One of the aspects of this book that stands out the most in my mind is the author's feelings about the reactions of her friends and family. What expressions of sympathy gave her strength and courage, and what left her cold? This memoir was written a little over a year after her first baby died in utero, and shortly after the birth of her second child. McCracken is painfully honest about who responded how. She addresses the few people who reacted in an unforgivable way, but more importantly, she recounts the loving expressions of sympathy from friend after friend that sustained her. I think there is something to learn here, about what we need most from our friends and relatives when we are grieving. It might seem like this is a depressing book, but it's not. I think McCracken wrote this memoir to memorialize both her first child and her own experience. I don't think she wants closure. She makes it very clear in the book that she wants to remember her first child always and every day. The book is a tribute, and a beautiful one at that.

I write them, I read them, I teach them -- ah! oy! the world of the memoir. The best ones it seems to me -- and make no mistake, this is easily the best one I've read in years -- take the subject and find a way to talk about it so that it becomes something else. Every memoir is why the look back almost forces the life forward, each one invented at the reckoning point. What makes this book so remarkable is not only the extraordinarily beautiful language in which the story is rendered, but in the structure itself -- stubbornly non-chronological -- so that by the time you are finished (and I read this in one breathtaking day), the story (of a death of a child and the life of a child) becomes as memorable as the language used to deliver us the news. This is a remarkable book.