How Geraldine Brooks learned how to live again through grief

Conversations

Writer Geraldine Brooks on love, grief and letting go after her husband died in a shocking and unexpected way.

In 2019, Australian writer Geraldine Brooks was forced into a world of practicalities when her beloved husband, Tony, collapsed on the street in the United States and died.

She had to immediately manage finances and family life, organise a funeral and work out what had happened for Tony to so suddenly and unexpectedly die.

As time went by, Geraldine realised she had never let herself properly grieve his loss and the loss of their imagined future together.

So she rented a shack on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait to face what had happened, to reflect on their big, itinerant life together, and to finally feel peace again.

This episode of Conversations explores grief, grieving a loved one, death, how to cope with an unexpected death, marriage, death of a spouse, letting go, origin stories, love stories, relationships, writing, books, America, Australia, politics, journalism, war correspondence, Syria, Israel, Iran, Palestine.

Memorial Days is published by Penguin Random House.