Here After By Amy Lin - Cover

Here After: Non-Fiction Review

Review by Stacey O’Carroll

Author: Amy Lin

Publisher: Zibby Books

RRP: $34.99

Release Date: 1 July 2024

 

“When he dies, I fall out of time.”

Canadian author Amy Lin’s memoir, Here After, is a beautiful, intimate and heartbreaking insight into the disorienting chaos of processing grief after the sudden loss of a loved one. Amy’s debut dives into her personal journal entries and blends poetry, captured conversations, lists, questions, vignettes and storytelling to create a map of before, after and beyond the unexpected loss of her husband. Her memoir is an exploration of grief in its most raw form.

“I do not always know how to remember.”

Whilst I have not lost a partner, I have lost a parent. The grief that follows in the next few years can bring on some of the strongest and strangest of emotions. Learning to rebuild your life around grief and trying to find a way to live without a loved one is complex and, at times, feels extremely isolating. Amy captures this isolation and weird new world with relatable, brutal honesty. From the inability to function due to overwhelming sadness to the search for answers, the reader senses her immense pain.

“In certain moments, my life with him feels illusory.”

So poetic is Amy’s prose that I often had to stop and remind myself the book was not a work of fiction but a journal-style memoir of navigating loss, grief, and attempting to live without the presence of a loved one. It is a cliche, but sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction; in Amy’s case, the truth is more powerful. The short memoir carries such poignancy that her experience lingers weeks after reading the book. Because the book is a memoir rather than a non-fiction commentary on grief or a novel inspired by her loss, the reader is placed in the centre of the events alongside the author. This deeply personal point of view may be uncomfortable for some readers, and the often-disorienting structure of the narrative may not be to everyone’s taste. However, these two aspects work together to represent the sudden floorless drop of losing a loved one and the confusing aftermath.

“There is no known or visible reason for him to be dead, except that he is.”

The short entries may seem small, but oh, do they pack a punch. A list of questions read together paints the picture of a desperate search for a way through or a way to end the continued gut-wrenching pain Amy is experiencing. Other times, the short entries represent how lost she feels after losing the person who helped her find her way. How do we find our way in life when our lighthouses people are gone?

“How are you?

                    They keep asking me. Friends, acquaintances, strangers: they all say these things to me.”

While some memoirs may touch on aspects of grief or dedicate a chapter to a personal loss, I do not remember any autobiography or memoir covering the topic so extensively from such a personal perspective. Through sharing her experience with grief, Amy will no doubt help others feel less alone in their sadness and loss. Her memoir may also help family and friends support those going through similar loss and grief.

I loved Amy Lin’s Here After and look forward to reading more of her writing in the future. Here After is a lingering and beautiful exploration of how we process grief, as well as a heartbreaking love note to the author’s partner.


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