9 Books About Leaning on the Families We Choose in Times of Grief

Grief is perhaps the most universal experience we share. It transcends everything that categorizes us—culture, class, religion, gender, even species. Yet for something with such ubiquitous reach, it is an entirely individual process. There’s no road map for when and how those five key stages will manifest, or for the infinite secondary stages one encounters. 

Pulling the lens back from our emotional attachments to it, one of the interesting things about grief is the realization of who or what brings comfort to the bereaved. I know from recent events it’s not always the people we expect—and in fact releasing those expectations may make the process more bearable. It might not be the person we consider our “ride or die” who will show up the strongest or the most often. It’s not necessarily the people with whom we’ve had the deepest conversations about life who will know the right things to say. Nor is it a given that a friend or family member grieving the same loss will be the one who makes us feel the most understood.

My novel The Coat Check Girl opens with the protagonist, Josie, returning to work following the loss of her beloved grandmother. Nanette was Josie’s anchor through a difficult childhood and messy foray into early adulthood, and without her Josie is unmoored. Compounding this is the fact that she has an acrimonious relationship with her mother, the one person with whom she should be able to bond in their shared grief. It is instead her makeshift family of coworkers at Bistrot restaurant—including the mysterious new coat check girl—along with a dubious love interest who bolster her in the aftermath of Nanette’s passing.

Here are nine other books that address the theme of navigating grief through found family:

The Forgotten Italian Restaurant by Barbara Josselsohn

The third book in Josselsohn’s historical series travels between World War Two-era Italy and the present. Callie is mourning the loss of her sister, with whom she had a troubled relationship. In cleaning out the family home, she discovers evidence of their grandmother’s mysterious past. She travels to Italy to fulfill a promise she’d once made to her sister and to uncover her grandmother’s secret. There she meets restaurant owner Oliver, whose own wartime family history may be linked to hers, and Emilia, an elderly hotel owner who seems to have known her grandmother. In unraveling the mystery, she and Oliver forge a connection that takes their lives in new directions, just as she and Emilia learn what it really means to be a sister.

Rumi and the Retribution by Pooneh Sadeghi

This is the first book in a trilogy and another that jumps time and place as two characters come to understand how their complicated pasts intersect. Set in Paris, D.C., and Tehran among other places, Rumi and the Retribution is a fast-paced political thriller. Noor Rahman has been grieving her mother’s murder for two decades—grief exacerbated by the many unanswered questions surrounding her death. When Gabriel McKnight—a former Navy SEAL turned bestselling author—walks into her life, he leads her on an intriguing international journey. This journey, and her burgeoning relationship with Gabriel, will ultimately bring Noor closure with the help of a series of clues her mother left her through key passages of Rumi’s poetry.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

This beautiful novel chronicles the AIDS epidemic on alternating timelines—the 1980s, when it began in the United States, and a more contemporary era in which the protagonists reflect on it. Because of the nature of the epidemic, some of the characters both afflicted by AIDS and impacted by grief over their fallen friends and lovers are alone in their struggles, having been disowned by their families of origin. The Great Believers is a testament to the enduring power of friendship.

A Little Life by Hanyah Yanagihara

A Little Life follows four college friends who move to New York after graduation and attempt to carve their very different paths in the world. This group is a safety net for the protagonist, Jude, who was abandoned as an infant and suffered an unthinkably traumatic childhood. It is friends and mentors, one of whom eventually adopts him as an adult, who attempt to help Jude face down his many demons. Another stunning exploration of the critical role friends can play in assuaging the isolation to which we are all susceptible. 

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

After a string of unfortunate events Nora Seed decides she’s had enough of life and swallows a handful of pills. But instead of death, she finds herself in the titular library, run by a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the school librarian who offered her solace during a childhood tragedy. The Midnight Library houses books that offer Nora different versions of her potential existence. In exploring the infinite paths available to her, she discovers the life she was leading was worth it after all.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

This quirky novel-turned-television series about a woman forging a path in a male-dominated industry—and world—in the early 1960s embodies the theme in myriad ways. Elizabeth learns she’s pregnant shortly after her partner’s untimely death and soon finds herself alone with her young daughter. Despite her almost pathological independence, to raise her daughter successfully Elizabeth has no choice but to rely on the kindness of others—including colleagues, a neighbor, and a delightfully anthropomorphized dog named Six-Thirty.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Sam and Sadie’s friendship is born of tragedy—they meet while Sam is recovering from the car accident that killed his mother. While he never fully rebounds physically or emotionally, his long and complicated relationship with Sadie is one of the threads that keeps his life from unraveling completely. And when Sadie grieves the demise of her first real relationship, it’s Sam who coaxes her back from the brink of despair.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

One of the quintessential memoirs about grief—with one of literature’s great titles—this book is about the year that followed the sudden death of Joan Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne. During this time Didion embarks on a deep exploration into grief as she grapples with how to define herself without the life partner from whom she was inseparable for forty years. This process is compounded by their daughter Quintana’s very serious health issues, from which she won’t recover—thereby leaving Didion little choice but to find family with whom to navigate these dark waters. Fortunately theirs is a vast and varied network of friends, many famous, most well-intentioned, who support Didion through this time. 

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

The protagonist and narrator of this quiet story is mourning the loss of a dear friend and mentor who took his own life. She adopts his equally bereft Great Dane, Apollo, and embarks on an effort to understand who her friend was, flaws and all, while dealing with the threat of eviction for housing a dog in a pet-averse building. What at first seems a relationship born strictly of necessity soon comes to show our protagonist the ineffable bond we can share with our canine companions.

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