Grief Is for People

Sloane Crosley is the heir apparent to our most beloved NYC scribes—a witty, indisputably cool New Yorker infectiously curious about the world around her. Her sharp pen can bring fresh insight and interest to any topic.

In Grief Is for People, we see Crosley’s intellect applied to grief and watch, heartbreakingly, as she tries to comprehend her dear friend’s death by suicide. She looks for clues, parallel threads between the loss of Russell and the coinciding burglary of her West Village apartment. She catalogs her missing objects and scavenges eBay for her stolen jewelry. She recalls her first encounters with Russell in the world of book publishing and their gradual transition from colleagues to friends. She reflects on how other people write about grief, and how the pandemic enveloped the world shortly after she fell into despair. If these all sound like disparate thoughts, at first glance, they are. But Crosley has woven an intricate, utterly precise web of obsession and longing as she strives to understand the magnitude of her pain, and struggles to imagine Russell’s.

How do we come to terms with grief? In Grief Is for People, Crosley beautifully articulates the difficult truth that there is no such thing as closure. Grief is a constant companion, a shadow, a physical presence. With beautiful, acrobatic language, Crosley has plumbed the depths of her own deep love and humanity in an unforgettable memoir that will hold you close.

How do we live without the ones we love? Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and suspenseful portrait of friendship, and a book about loss that is profuse with life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.

For most of her adult life, Sloane and Russell worked together and played together as they navigated the corridors of office life, the literary world, and the dramatic cultural shifts in New York City. One day, Sloane’s apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery in its place.

When Russell dies exactly one month later, his suicide propels Sloane on a wild quest to right the unrightable, to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll of the pandemic.

Sloane Crosley’s search for truth is frank, darkly funny, and gilded with resounding empathy. Upending the “grief memoir,” Grief Is for People is a category-defying story of the struggle to hold on to the past without being consumed by it. A modern elegy, it rises precisely to console and challenge our notions of mourning during these grief-stricken times.