Here After

A Memoir

by Amy Lin

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Pub Date Mar 05 2024 | Archive Date Mar 05 2024

Zibby Books

Biographies & Memoirs | Nonfiction (Adult)

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Description

Here After is a poetic, raw, unprocessed, and authentic depiction of an unlikely love followed by a dizzying loss. A stunning, taut memoir from debut Canadian author Amy Lin that will resonate deeply with anyone who has been in grief’s grasp.

“When he dies, I fall out of time.”

Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure, and greater self-acceptance. But on a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds’ move to Vancouver, thirty-two-year-old Kurtis heads out to run a half-marathon with Amy’s family. It’s the last time she sees her husband alive.

Ten days after this seismic loss, Amy is in the hospital, navigating her own shocking medical crisis and making life-or-death decisions about her treatment.

What follows is a rich and unflinchingly honest portrayal of her life with Kurtis, the vortex created by his death, and the ongoing struggle Amy faces as she attempts to understand her own experience in the context of commonly held “truths” about what the grieving process looks like.

Here After is a singular love and loss story, a meditation on the ways in which Kurtis’ death shatters any set ideas Amy ever held about grief, strength, and memory.

Advance Praise

“As the author navigates the wake of her inexplicable loss, readers will be both humbled by and grateful for the way she brings us into her world. A beautifully visceral and emotionally intimate depiction of young widowhood.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“It has been years since I have been so rocked, so moved, by any book, as I have been by Here After by the earthquaking new talent Amy Lin. Lin invites us into this place of exquisite pain and beauty; what a great gift she has given us.” –Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

"Amy Lin’s debut memoir is a testament to everything beautiful and heartbreaking and necessary in this world. With sheer precision and unflinching candor, she shares the depths of love and loss, hope and healing. Not since Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking has a book cracked open my heart the way Here After has."―Debbie Millman, author of Why Design Matters and host of Design Matters

“How gorgeously Here After tackles the twin specters of grief and survival; a steely, symphonic memoir of unexpected loss―and what (necessarily, unbearably) comes next.”―Carmen Machado, author of In the Dream House

“Here After is a searing account of a young couple’s lost future and a writer’s descent into the soul-ravaging, shape-shifting wilderness of grief. Amy Lin writes with devastating clarity about the wounds that do not heal, the stories that remain forever fractured, and love’s enduring force. This is a profound and essential memoir.” –Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel

"Here After is perfectly titled. Amy Lin's memoir of love and loss is heartbreaking and true. Having navigated my own path through grief, there was much I could identify with within these pages. Lin's writing is vivid, episodic, and unflinching―much like grief itself." –Shannon Leone Fowler, author of Traveling With Ghosts

“Amy Lin knows her way around grief and its constant present tense. Grief is always with us; here are words to go with it, a writer who will accompany you on its long walk. This book made room for my tears and it will make room for yours if you let it.” ―Matthew Salesses, author of Craft in the Real World

“As the author navigates the wake of her inexplicable loss, readers will be both humbled by and grateful for the way she brings us into her world. A beautifully visceral and emotionally intimate...