by Nick Blackburn - £12.99 Faber & Faber (2022)
paperback
ISBN 13: 9780571367740 | ISBN 10: 0571367747
A crystalline, inventive account of loss from a thrilling young literary talent – and a journey to recognition of grief’s destructive and creative possibilities.
I tore the arse of my pyjamas one morning, about a year before he died, and my father sewed it up perfect in a few minutes, just like that. I was looking at them this morning actually, his line of white stitches. It’s beautiful really. They’ve held.
After the sudden death of his father, Nick Blackburn embarks on a singular, labyrinthine journey to understand his loss. How do you create an existence when all you can see is a void?
The Reactor is a memoir about absence and creative possibilities, assembled like the pieces of a puzzle. Through philosophy, music, fashion, psychology, art and film, Blackburn travels a vast panorama of ideas and characters to offer an entirely new exploration of grief. This is a book about looking for and finding chain reactions and human connection – a work of enduring fragmentary beauty.
(Price & availability last checked: February 2022)
In booklists: Death, Dying & Grief,
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