There Is No Blue EPUB

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Martha Baillies richly layered response to her mothers passing, her father's life, and her sisters suicide is an exploration of how the body, the rooms we inhabit, and our languages offer the psyche a home, if only for a time.

Three essays, three deaths. The first is the death of the authors mother, a protracted disappearance, leaving space for thoughtfulness and ritual: the washing of her body, the making of a death mask. The second considers the authors father, his remoteness, his charm, a lacuna at the centre of the family even before his death, earlier than her mothers. And then, the shocking death of the authors sister, a visual artist and writer living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who writes three reasons to die on her bedroom wall and then takes her life.

In this close observation of a family, few absolutes hold, as experiences of reality diverge.A memoir of cascading grief and survival from the author ofThe Incident Report.

Martha Baillies novels are thrillingly, joyously singular, that rare combination ofsui generisand just plain generous. ThatThere Is No Blue, her memoir, is all of those things too, is no surprise; still, she has gone somewhere extraordinary. This triptych of essays, which exquisitely unfolds the disobedient tale of the lives and deaths of her mother, her father, and her sister, is a meditation on the mystery and wonder of grief and art making and home and memory itself. It made me think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repair, in which the mending is not hidden but featured and beautifully illuminated. Baillies variety of attention, carved out of language, is tenderness, is love. Maud Casey, author ofCity of Incurable Women

This is a stunning memoir, intense and meticulous in its observations of family life. Baillie subtly interrogates and conveys the devastating mistranslations that take place in childhood, the antagonism and porousness of siblings, and the tragedy of schizophrenia as it unfolds. I couldnt put it down. Dr. Lisa Appignanesi, author ofMad, Bad and SadandEveryday Madness

Exquisite. Souvankham Thammavongsa, author ofHow to Pronounce Knife

I am grateful for this profound meditation on family and loss. Charlie Kaufman, filmmaker

This strange, unsettling memoir of outer life and inner life and their bizarre twining captures the authors identity by way of her mothers death, her sisters failing battle with mental illness, and the mysterious figure of her father. It combines anguished guilt, deep tenderness, and bemused affection in highly evocative, often disturbing prose. Its brave honesty is amplified by a persistent lyricism; its undercurrent of fear is uplifted by a surprising, resilient hopefulness. It is both a plea for exoneration and an act of exoneration, an authentic meditation on the terrible difficulty of being human. Andrew Solomon, author ofThe Noonday Demon