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Listed in Time‘s 100 Must-Read Books of 2019
‘A gripping and beautiful book about the power of love in the face of unimaginable loss’
Cheryl Strayed
‘Extraordinary . . . both heartbreaking and life-affirming . . . you will find your heart magically expanded’
Mail on Sunday
‘Greene’s account of his loss is remarkably uplifting. It’s hard-won proof that love can survive our worst fears and our darkest, most desperate emotions.’
Daily Mail
‘This minutely observed memoir will surely be helpful to people whose world changes in an instant . . . a hopeful book in many ways’
The Times
‘Wonderful writing, brave, unbearably sad’
Adam Kay
Two-year-old Greta Greene is sitting chatting with her grandmother on a park bench in New York when a brick crumbles from a windowsill overhead and strikes her unconscious. As she is rushed to hospital in the hours before her death Once More We Stars leads us into the unimaginable.
Her father Jayson and mother Stacy begin a painful journey that is as much about hope and healing as it is grief and loss. Even in the midst of his ordeal, Jayson recognises that there will be a life for him beyond it – if he can only continue moving forward, from one moment to the next, he will survive what seems un-survivable. With raw honesty, deep emotion, and exquisite tenderness, he captures the fragility of life and the absoluteness of death, and most important of all, the unconquerable power of love.
This is an unforgettable memoir of courage and transformation – and a book that will change the way you look at the world.
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Reviews
'A gripping and beautiful book about the power of love in the face of unimaginable loss'
'Funny, lucid, and deeply generous - proof that a masterful writer can make from his own specifics a universal story with lessons for us all'
'It has taught me so much about grief. That it isn't always silent and humble. It is also angry and vain-glorious. Grief is so many things, because people are so many things. I wish with all my heart that Greta Greene was still with her parents. But in her absence, I can only thank her father for his memoir about what loving her, and losing her, taught him.'
'This stunning book reminds us that nothing - not even devastating grief - can define us as much as our deepest loves. A must read'
'How do we wrest beauty out of searing pain? How, in the face of the most profound grief and sorrow, do we search for meaning and find it? Jayson Greene does just that in this soul-affirming book. Once More We Saw Stars is a stunning human achievement as well as a literary one'
'Jayson Greene's Once More We Saw Stars attains flight in a language born of sheer necessity, that of bridging the gulf between daily life and the unnameable'
'Reading this book is not an easy thing but it is an incredible life-affirming and moving experience that'll make as much of an impact on you as Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air or Helen Macdonald's H Is For Hawk . . . You will weep and weep while reading Greene's words but are guaranteed to find something truly beautiful within its pages.'
''Possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever read . . . It's brutal and uncompromising . . . it's just a tour de force''
'One of the most heartbreaking and bittersweet memoirs you will read all year . . . ultimately a life-affirming achievement'
'There are many lessons about the human spirit to be drawn from Greene's moving testament to parental love and loss, but perhaps the most vital is that love is a mighty force, capable of raising us to the very pinnacle of being and into its darkest abyss.'
'This minutely observed memoir will surely be helpful to people whose world changes in an instant . . . a hopeful book in many ways'
'The story is almost unbearable. Yet Greene's account of his loss is remarkably uplifting. It's hard-won proof that love can survive our worst fears and our darkest, most desperate emotions.'
'Jayson Greene admirably captures the beauty and, sometimes, the ego of grief . . . Anyone who has lost someone can find themselves in here'
'Extraordinary . . . both heartbreaking and life-affirming . . . you will find your heart magically expanded'