A Constellation of Ghosts

"Laraine Herring has written a groundbreaking, breathtaking tour de force here, excavating personal and ancestral trauma as she blazes forth new possibilities for both narrative and healing. A Constellation of Ghosts is reckoning and revelation, deeply embodied, wholly visionary. This book is unlike anything you've ever read; this book will rock you to the marrow and leave you changed." -- Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis
"Gripping in its honesty, A Constellation of Ghosts is an incredible journey of self-discovery, revelation, mourning and healing. I am awed by the strength and courage it took to write such a raw, personal book." -- Rick Hamilton, filmmaker and director ( Seeing Glory ), www.rickhamilton.nyc
"Laraine Herring's A Constellation of Ghosts endearingly broaches the borders between poetic prose and prose poetry -- a vivid, insistent, lyrical memoir. Herring presses on our universal yearning to reconcile the curious pull of loved ones who have been gone for decades. Beautifully crafted, inviting, and playful, the book explores the imprint of family, one's own mortality, and the ultimate gifts of grief. Her unusual story -- in which it doesn't even seem odd that ravens appear and speakmerges a lovely elegy for her long-gone father with the author's illness, the need to move on from a long-held grief, and the lure of letting go." -- Lisa Romeo, author of Starting With Goodbye, A Daughter's Memoir of Love after Loss
"A Constellation of Ghosts is unlike any book you have read or will read again. This genre-bending, lyrically beautiful, mind-blowing memoir uses the imagined to make way for deeper, underlying truths of fear and family and love (and the absence of) in the face of illness, uncertainty, displacement, and death. Through scripting of multi-generational voicesparticularly, her deceased father in the form of a ravenLaraine Herring confronts the commitments we make to each other and those that grief, betrayal, and forgiveness make to us." -- Melissa Grunow, author of I Don't Belong Here
"As haunting as it is beautiful, Laraine Herring busts open the speculative memoir genre with A Constellation of Ghosts to show that even when we thought we had let go, the dead are always with us. Through rhythmic and poetic language, Herring hasn't just created an engaging read, she's invited the reader to come in and have an experience. So I don't know which is more powerful here--the story or the writing. They both gave me chills. Because from rhyming ravens to poignant ghosts, Herring's words enter into your bones, become a part of you, and will refuse to leave." -- Chelsey Clammer, author of Circadian
"I read Constellation of Ghosts in a rush, compelled, unable to put it down. A spiral that bores to the core of life and death, past selves, family wounds, and the relationships within family structures, Herring's speculative memoir is fearless, moving, profound, and so full of love it overflows. Its real magic is the way it heals, bringing the reader to a still point where she finds herself home at last. This is memoir at its best." -- Michaela Carter, author of Leonora in the Morning Light
"What's the best way to grieve? We could conjure ghosts, write and re-write our stories, collect history, quantify, create rituals, let go of that balloon, promising us comfort, at long last. Maybe our fathers will become ravens and speak to us until we no longer need them. Maybe we can sing a death lullaby, somehow putting our grief to rest. Through time, from her father's quarantine and affliction with polio, to the horror of cancer, and myriad violences, Herring asks and answers the question of how to let go. She commits to it. A generous literary act." -- Jenny Forrester, author of Soft-Hearted Stories