Grief Is for People

Starred review from November 1, 2023
An essayist and novelist turns her attention to the heartache of a friend's suicide. Crosley's memoir is not only a joy to read, but also a respectful and philosophical work about a colleague's recent suicide. "All burglaries are alike, but every burglary is uninsured in its own way," she begins, in reference to the thief who stole the jewelry from her New York apartment in 2019. Among the stolen items was her grandmother's "green dome cocktail ring with tiers of tourmaline (think kryptonite, think dish soap)." She wrote those words two months after the burglary and "one month since the violent death of my dearest friend." That friend was Russell Perreault, referred to only by his first name, her boss when she was a publicist at Vintage Books. Russell, who loved "cheap trinkets" from flea markets, had "the timeless charm of a movie star, the competitive edge of a Spartan," and--one of many marvelous details--a "thatch of salt-and-pepper hair, seemingly scalped from the roof of an English country house." Over the years, the two became more than boss and subordinate, teasing one another at work, sharing dinners, enjoying "idyllic scenes" at his Connecticut country home, "a modest farmhouse with peeling paint and fragile plumbing...the house that Windex forgot." It was in the barn at that house that Russell took his own life. Despite the obvious difference in the severity of robbery and suicide, Crosley fashions a sharp narrative that finds commonality in the dislocation brought on by these events. The book is no hagiography--she notes harassment complaints against Russell for thoughtlessly tossed-off comments, plus critiques of the "deeply antiquated and often backward" publishing industry--but the result is a warm remembrance sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced loss. A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.

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Starred review from December 11, 2023
In this aching meditation on loss and friendship, essayist and novelist Crosley (Cult Classic) eulogizes her late literary mentor and best friend against the backdrop of the high-pressure publishing industry. At 25, Crosley applied for a job opening at Vintage Books. Russell Perreault, the then-37-year-old head of the paperback imprint’s publicity department, was charmed and offered her the job. When Crosley, who was hesitant to leave her current position at “a more commercial publishing house,” asked for a second interview, Russell shot back, “It’s like you’ve been admitted to Harvard but first you need a tour of the bathrooms.” From there, the two became fast friends as they faced down crises both minor and major, including the exposure of James Frey’s lies in his fictionalized 2003 memoir, A Million Little Pieces. By the 2010s, however, Russell’s light began to dim—Crosley stopped receiving invitations to his country house after his romantic life imploded, and changing workplace norms silenced his signature banter. On June 27, 2019, Crosley’s apartment was burglarized; exactly one month later, Russell died by suicide. Crosley elegantly links the two losses by explaining how her fevered desire to reclaim her burglarized items stood in for her inability to reclaim Russell. Her characteristically whip-smart prose takes on a newly introspective quality as she reinvigorates dusty publishing memoir tropes and captures the minutiae of a complicated friendship with humor and heart. This is a must-read. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME.

Starred review from December 1, 2023
In June 2019, Crosley (Cult Classic, 2022) ran an errand and came home to a burglarized apartment, her jewelry cabinet ransacked. One month later to the hour, her dear friend Russell died by suicide. Novelist and essayist Crosley is a tightrope writer of devastating wit and plain devastation, a balancing act no doubt requiring even more muscle in this memoir of her grief. Crosley's jewelry and Russell had been connected from day one, when she interviewed to work for him in book publicity and he complimented her ring. Working together, a soulmate friendship was born. ""Find one of us, pull the string, you'd find the other."" After Russell is gone, getting back the stolen pieces seems crucial to somehow keeping him, too. Structuring this memoir around the five stages of grief, Crosley denies. She bargains. She finds herself in a shady third-floor suite in the diamond district with truly shocking results. And she writes, ""banging on the walls of this story, trying to find a way in so that I might find a way out."" Also a story of the shifting sands of the last two decades in book publishing and the author's and her friend's changing places within it, this is a searching, impassioned, cathartic, and loving elegy.

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