Confronting Grief in Fiction
In my new book, The Secrets of Flowers, the main character, Emma, is a young widow trying to make sense of her life after her husband’s death. Struggling to come to terms with her grief, she changes jobs, going to work as a florist in a garden center. A new start she thinks.
But is overcoming grief ever as easy as that? Our own experience may well tell us differently.
(4 Types of “Smaller” Grief We Need to Talk About.)
In Emma’s case, she finds it hard to connect with the people she works with, and when garden center owners, Betty and Les, invite her to a talk Les is giving on the Titanic, Emma discovers she cannot face it and at the last minute she backs out. Instead she returns home and starts to watch a program about the Titanic—maybe she will have something to talk to Les about tomorrow. As the credits start to roll, she begins to wonder—were there flowers on the Titanic?
This is the beginning of a quest, that grows into a distracting obsession, taking Emma on a floral journey of discovery, and ultimately recovery. As Emma becomes more and more immersed in flowers (each chapter is named after a particular variety) not only does Emma discover that the Titanic was ‘a ship full of flowers,’ but she experiences a strange feeling of connection with one of the stewardesses on board. The book unfolds in a dual narrative between Emma and stewardess, Violet. Along the way we encounter a cast of characters who support Emma, not only in her floral research, but in her need for answers about her late husband, Will.
Choosing grief as a theme for a book was a decision I thought long and hard about. There was no doubt it offered the chance to show transition, to demonstrate hope and also, to make the point that things are often better when we accept help. A major message within The Secrets of Flowers is that we usually achieve more when we work together. However, I would never want to offend readers by not getting Emma’s experience ‘right.’
There is also the question of how much of your own experience do you put in? I am fortunate not to have lost a partner as Emma did, but as a woman in her 60s I have experienced loss in many other forms. Digging deep to draw upon that was at times painful, but I felt I owed it to readers to be as authentic as I could. Having said that, my books are never going to be filled with bleak themes. I don’t want to avoid difficult issues, but essentially, I am an optimist and I would like to give readers hope and perhaps an escape from their day-to-day lives.
Turning to my bookshelf, it is clear that others have been drawn, or driven, to write about grief too. Some provide it in a very palatable form. I am thinking of my favorite Whodunnits. Sinking into an Agatha Christie on a Sunday afternoon, I know quite a few people are going to die, but I am expecting nothing but pleasure!
Others approach it in an oblique manner adding to the poignancy of the situation. In Barbara Kingsolver’s beautiful book, Demon Copperhead, seeing loss through a child’s eyes is compelling and at times agonizing. Thinking back to this and other writers, I believe in tackling this tricky subject some authors may well be wishing to say something to us about life, as well as death.
I certainly found that in Catherine Newman’s wonderful, but heartbreaking novel, We All Want Impossible Things. By the way, this is a reminder not to judge a book by the cover! I was drawn to the cover and its image of blue and white china, and what looked like a lemon pie. A slim, cozy book, I guessed, not reading the back. When I started to delve into it, initially, I felt I should not go on—in fact, could not go on. My friend had terminal cancer and we knew we would not have her with us for much longer. But in the end, I did persevere and I am so glad I did. I found so much to comfort me in Newman’s book, as well as to challenge me.
So maybe writing about grief is all about balance and knowing your reader. A cozy crime fan does not want to encounter the searing pain of loss. But someone opening up the pages of Fredrik Backman’s, heavenly, A Man Called Ove, will probably get some sense that this is going to be a story with lyrical depth, and so will be ready for big themes.
Which brings me on to another point. Is it okay to kill off your main character? Those of you who have read David Nicholl’s One Day will have your own view on this. Personally, I was devastated, and then really, really cross. How could he do that to us?! But having had my rant—isn’t this book so memorable because death comes when we least expect it? Rather like in life.
Still, I find I am not tempted to change my habit of writing happy endings. Life is tough enough. I may deal with difficult themes, and I may not tie up all the loose ends, but I know I will always give readers a happy ending. However, I do treasure the emails and messages I have received from widows who have read The Secrets of Flowers who say that they felt I understood their grief, and that this, in its own way, gave them recognition and comfort.
Check out Sally Page’s The Secrets of Flowers here:
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