Book
Firstborn : a memoir / Lauren Christensen.
"A memoir of love, familial bonds, and grief that defies consolation, which the author began writing the day she lost her daughter in utero"-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780593831816 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: 191 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
- Publisher: New York : Penguin Press, 2025.
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| Genre: | Biographies. Personal narratives. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cookstown Branch | 155.937085 Chr | 31681010411270 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
A heartbreaking yet hopeful memoir of love, loss, and resilience, recounting the joy of impending parenthood, the devastating loss of a child and the profound journey of grappling with grief while finding meaning in lifeâs deepest paradoxes Illustrations. - Penguin Putnam
âAn achingly beautiful testament to fierce loss, fierce love and fierce resilience.â âPeople Magazine
âYou will find yourself rationing out pages to spend more time in the glow of Christensenâs luminous prose and inextinguishable love. A triumph.â âOprah Daily (best new books to read this spring)
A lapidary memoir of losing a child before she can be born, which the author began writing the day she came home from the hospitalâan intimate story about our most searing losses and brightest hopes
âSome days I still think this is all just a sad story Iâll tell Simone one day.â
Lauren Christensen is a thirtysomething editor in New York City when she meets her future husband, Gabe, a writer with whom she falls in love right away. Her beloved grandfather is dying, but the young couple is bringing new life into the family: Lauren and Gabe joyfully discover she is pregnant with their daughter, Simone.
As Lauren faces the prospect of becoming a parent, she learns to let go of the fear of abandonment and need for control instilled in her by growing up with a largely absent father and a high-powered mother who was often away on business. Lauren and Gabe are incandescently happy in their exuberant, messy, beautiful shared world. But just weeks after their wedding, they learn that their worst nightmare has come true: Simone is dying in the womb.
In fierce, tender, spellbinding prose, Firstborn brings us to the very heart of the human paradox: How do we live when everyone who makes up our world will someday be gone? And how can we mourn when the cosmic order has been turned upside downâwhen a child dies before she is born?
As she comes up against the brutal limits of maternal healthcare and the limitlessness of her love for her daughter, Lauren Christensen finds a key, generous and brave, in which to share her loss, a testimony whose diamond-like brilliance refracts a universal light.
