Life after loss in âSanctuaryâ
In a second memoir, Emily Rapp Black meditates on motherhood, survival, and hope
By Julianna Baggott Globe Correspondent,Updated January 20, 2021, 7:17 p.m.
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Emily Rapp Black
In her latest memoir, âSanctuary,â Emily Rapp Black attempts to plumb both grief and love. After the death of her son, Ronan, to Tay-Sachs disease before his 3rd birthday, a journey she writes about in her previous memoir âThe Still Point of the Turning Worldâ (2014), Black finds herself living in the aftermath of unimaginable loss. On these pages, she refuses to usher the reader through the tidy, well-bordered stages of grief. Instead, she is rebuilding a life in ways that are messy, erratic, and devastating while finding moments of joy, strength, and resilience, a word sheâs wrestled with.
Random House: 240 pages, $27
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Consider the Phoenix, that majestic, born-again bird of myth that defies death by rising from its own ashes. A mighty creature; a symbol of hope.
“Screw that,” says memoirist Emily Rapp Black, imagining the bird’s ascension. “That bird looks like crap. That bird has one wing, one eye left, half of its beak, and it’s barely getting out of there.” In other words, that bird has been through hell, and it shows. But it’s ready to fly again, because that’s what it does.