Lost Fathers: How Women Can Heal from Adolescent Father Loss

I'm a writer, too, and have been working on dealing with the loss of my father in some way since he died some 20 (plus!) years ago. I've read a lot - pop psychology and other - on coping with loss, but never saw this before. I found it in a Georgetown bookstore and started flipping through it. An hour or so later I had almost finished a first read and was in line to buy it. It's among the most useful books I've ever read. It helps a lot that Ms. herring is a fellow writer, pretty much exactly my age, lost her father at a similar point, with a sister of similar relative age. With all due respect to the previous poster, this is NOT about mother loss. I've found no shortage of books there. It's very specifically about losing your father when you're female and not a child or an adult but somewhere between girl and woman. The specificity is what makes it a find for me. It also had very concrete writing assignments and wonderful insights. Thank you Ms. Herring - this books has a specific and limited market but your talents have not gone unnoticed and I hope will be seen by others too! Write more!

Laraine Herring has written a book on father loss that really applies to mother loss as well, but specifically the father. As a reader, I gained insight into parental loss, and with the addition of her own poetry there's a personal journey that takes us beyond sheer intellect (which is very evident in this book, well written, intelligent). I'm left with the feeling that Ms. Herring is a woman of heart and mind, and with this balance a healing takes place. It's the kind of book you want to mark up, bend the page, read the poetry out loud, share with a friend, a group. Read it more than once, enjoy the process of heart and mind.