{"product_id":"9781552454749","title":"There Is No Blue","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMartha Baillie’s richly layered response to her mother’s passing, her father's life, and her sister’s suicide is an exploration of how the body, the rooms we inhabit, and our languages offer the psyche a home, if only for a time. \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThree essays, three deaths. The first is the death of the author’s mother, a protracted disappearance, leaving space for thoughtfulness and ritual: the washing of her body, the making of a death mask. The second considers Baillie's father, his remoteness, his charm, a lacuna at the center of the family even before his death, earlier than her mother's. And then, third, shockingly, the author’s sister, a visual artist and writer living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who writes three reasons to die on her bedroom wall and then takes her life, just before the book the sisters co-authored is due to come out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this close observation of a family, few absolutes hold, as experiences of reality diverge. A memoir of cascading grief and survival from the author of \u003ci style=\"\"\u003eThe Incident Report.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Martha Baillie’s novels are thrillingly, joyously singular, that rare combination of \u003ci\u003esui generis\u003c\/i\u003e and just plain generous. That \u003ci\u003eThere Is No Blue\u003c\/i\u003e, her memoir, is all of those things too, is no surprise; still, she has gone somewhere extraordinary. This triptych of essays, which exquisitely unfolds the “disobedient tale” of the lives and deaths of her mother, her father, and her sister, is a meditation on the mystery and wonder of grief and art making and home and memory itself. It made me think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repair, in which the mending is not hidden but featured and beautifully illuminated. Baillie’s variety of attention, carved out of language, is tenderness, is love.\" – \u003cb style=\"\"\u003eMaud Casey, author of \u003ci\u003eCity of Incurable Women\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb style=\"\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This is a stunning memoir, intense and meticulous in its observations of family life. Baillie subtly interrogates and conveys the devastating mistranslations that take place in childhood, the antagonism and porousness of siblings,  and the tragedy of schizophrenia as it unfolds.  I couldn’t put it down.\" – \u003cb\u003eDr. Lisa Appignanesi, author of \u003ci\u003eMad, Bad and Sad\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEveryday Madness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\"Exquisite.\" – \u003cb style=\"\"\u003eSouvankham Thammavongsa, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb style=\"\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eHow to Pronounce Knife\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"I am grateful for this profound meditation on family and loss.” – \u003cb\u003eCharlie Kaufman, filmmaker\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Martha Baillie (CA)","offers":[{"title":"Coach House Books |  Paperback \/ softback | Trade paperback (US) |  2023-10-03","offer_id":44230047793407,"sku":"9781552454749","price":23.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0329\/9075\/7001\/files\/BNCImageAPI_f73f259f-d588-476a-9685-ace2babea5d4.jpg?v=1692992840","url":"https:\/\/riverbookshop.com\/products\/9781552454749","provider":"River Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}