Elegy for a son she never knew

By LAURIE HERTZEL, Star Tribune

Last update: September 10, 2008 - 2:51 PM

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AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION

By: Elizabeth McCracken.

Publisher: Little Brown and Co., 192 pages, $19.99.

Review: A searing but also sometimes funny memoir of loss.

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How do you carry on after the loss of a child? What if it's a child you never kissed, never held, never named beyond a loving prenatal nickname?

Elizabeth McCracken lost her first son nine months into her pregnancy. She and her husband, Edward, were living in France, a place she now says she will never visit again. Days before her due date, the full-term baby they called Pudding simply died inside her. The autopsy revealed no cause.

Her memoir of that year is searing, excruciatingly sad and occasionally howlingly funny. (Black humor, she says, is "that odd, reliable comfort that billows up at the worst moments, like a beautiful sunset woven out of the smoke over a bombed city." Black humor, she says, is proof that there is a God.)

McCracken is sensible and thoughtful; you're on her side from the beginning. She is sad, but without self-pity. Her devastating black humor punctuates the narrative, and when you laugh it's OK, because you understand her desire that Pudding be remembered with pleasure, not pain.

She and Edward have a second child now, "a nice, everyday baby," but Pudding is always in her thoughts. "I'm not ready for my first child to fade into history," McCracken writes, and trust me, there is no chance of that, because the book that Pudding's mother wrote about him -- wrote for him-- is unforgettable.

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Here are some of Books Editor Laurie Hertzel's favorite sites and blogs. Got a literary link to share? E-mail Laurie.

Twin Cities Literary Scavenger Hunt Home page for the scavenger hunt, which runs now through Dec. 26.
Reading Minnesota A blog that features Minnesota writers, illustrators, publishers, bookstores, and reviewers.
Talk of the Stacks An author series from the Library Foundation of Hennepin County.
Poets & Writers The website for Poets and Writers Magazine--podcasts, author interviews, and writing resources.
Creative Writing A place to keep apprised of writing competitions in the United States.
Gather Minnesota Readers The Website for Minnesota Public Radio's books blog.
The Loft Literary Center The Website for the Loft, a local place for writers and readers.
Good Reads A way to track what you're reading, and what your friends are reading.
Lost Manuscripts Just what it sounds like - a blog (sporadically updated) devoted to missing and destroyed manuscripts.
Maud Newton Very hip, reviews, links, a little attitude.
bookreporter.com A plethora of online book reviews and reading guides.
Rain Taxi Rain Taxi Review of Books.