Memorial Days

Finished March 2

Memorial Days: A Memoir by Geraldine Brooks

This memoir moves back and forth between two times: one beginning on May 27, 2019, when her husband Tony Horowitz died suddenly; and one beginning in February 2023 when Geraldine went on a solo retreat to a small beach house on Flinders Island in Australia, her home country. 

Tony was on a book tour at the time, after writing a book that required intense research, and a tight deadline. She had met up with him at other points on the tour, but decided not to on this weekend. Their older son was on his way to Australia with his girlfriend, and her younger son was at boarding school. Tony's mom and siblings were at a family get-together in Maine. 

Geraldine was notified of Tony's death through a terse phone call from a hospital. When the follow-up call from the police came, they were, at least, kind. 

Because she was alone and far from where he died, on a holiday weekend where travel was difficult, she felt that she couldn't react the way that she wanted to. She had to hold herself together, and do what needed to be done. It wasn't until the trip she went on nearly four years later that she was able to truly grieve. 

The book moves back and forth between these two times, as she points out flaws in the system that she dealt with, the lack of planning for death she and Tony had done, and the various bureaucratic issues that she had to deal with immediately after her terrible loss. 

Geraldine grew up in Australia, and until she met Tony, an American, had every intention of living there and making her career there. Flinders Island, part of an archipelago between Tasmania and the rest of Australia had drawn her early in her adulthood, and in 2023, she tries to imagine what her life would have been like if she had spent it there instead of where her life took her. 

The beauty of the island, the nature that she describes paints a picture that is both wild and immersive. She watches the ocean, the sky, the land, and its creatures as she comes to terms with her loss and where it leaves her now, facing a future that is different than what she had imagined. 

This is a moving book, one that brought out emotions in me as I read it. She is an author I have read a lot and enjoyed immensely for her beautiful prose. Highly recommended.