Grief’s Country: A Memoir in Pieces
by Gail Griffin
Wayne State University Press $18.99
ReviewED by Whitney (Walters) Jacobson
Grief’s terrain has landmarks that guide and impress upon us, but our experience with each one varies. Written in a series of essays and poems, Grief’s Country: A Memoir in Pieces (Wayne State University Press, 2020) by Gail Griffin examines grief like a sculptor labors, working from a rough cut of life to give shape to the core within.
The book’s success as a grief memoir is based in the immediate portrayal of her experience. Griffin’s husband, Bob, died four short months after they were married, though their time as a pair spanned eighteen years. Each chapter within the book explores their experience from a different period—time they spent apart (nearly sixteen years), time they spent together in Colorado and Michigan, Griffin’s first year after his death, and her movement through grief three years later. Intertwined in each chapter are moments and details from Griffin’s life before meeting Bob.
Griffin lets her actions and associated riffs speak to her emotions rather than overtly saying, “I was angry, I was bargaining, I was depressed,” etc. For instance, in the chapter “Bodies of Water,” when she visits the funeral home before Bob is cremated, she notes, “Suddenly, I think of your ring, your father’s ring on your finger. I can get that for you, says the [funeral director] and disappears downstairs. And then I understand that you are there, your body in the house with me, . . . and a howl rises, starting small and growing, and I strangle it before it can ring through the dark heavy rooms” (125). In this manner, she builds readers’ trust in her as a guide through an experience they may not be familiar with or may be seeking understanding within.
Like a carpenter sanding down a rough surface to avoid splinters and abrasions, Griffin repeats information about her life with Bob, as one might expect when grieving and trying to process the details. However, while the individual essays can stand alone, and thus some repetition may be expected, at times the repetition of facts became tedious when considering the book as a whole.
When leading into her unsuccessful trip to Jamaica to avoid grief over the holidays and their first wedding anniversary, she attentively notes “Of our eighteen years together, Bob and I spent sixteen in different time zones, so summers and Christmas counted heavily—the two seasons when academics can break loose” (72-73). Other times, it is unclear why that information is essential to the chapter, such as in “Singular Bird” when she spends a paragraph recounting their relationship history (“We put in eighteen years . . .” [112]), all of it previously established in the memoir, such that the paragraph could be deleted and the passage enhanced as a result.
Grief is not the only terrain explored within the book. The mountains of Colorado and the rivers and lakes of Michigan serve as effective mirrors to Griffin’s inner experiences: “It was late morning. Soon the heat would close in over the day like a dome and stay put until 8 p.m., when the blazing western sun would finally begin to melt. . . . We were approaching the summer solstice, when light streaks the sky past 10 p.m. On Christmas night, we had just crossed the winter solstice, the longest night. Even then the dark was beginning to draw back” (104). However, at other times, the landscape paired with grief unfortunately falls into clichés: “A griever is an island” (114).
Griffin renders her unfortunate experience with loss into a memoir offering insight into the landscape of grief, though its value to others grieving may vary depending on their experience with the terrain.
Whitney (Walters) Jacobson holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have been published in Punctuate, Feminine Collective, Up North Lit, After the Pause, and In the Words of Womyn International, among other publications. She is currently working on a collection of essays exploring skills, objects, and traits passed on (or not) from generation to generation. She maintains a curiosity in memoir and the themes of feminism, water, inheritance, blue-collar work, and grief.